Message in a bottle
by Red Shoe Kitty
Summary: AU - Made miserable by his horrible life and his abusive father a young Ianto Jones writes down his woes, seals the note into a bottle and throws it into Cardiff Bay. Who will come to his aid? Note: this was going to be a sweet two-parter but it didn't want to be written like that and twisted itself into something longer and quite dark. Be warned
1. Chapter 1

**Cardiff 1999**

The tall skinny boy seated on a windy shoreline on Cardiff bay, sniffed hard. He wasn't sure of it was the bitter wind blowing off the water that was making his eyes tear up or just the over whelming shittiness of his life. He buried his head in his hands and blinked hard, his right hand fumbled for the bottle of cider he had bought down to the beach with him, grunting in disappointment when he realised it was empty. Sighing he pulled a note pad and a pen out of his pocket. He gazed at the water for a minute or two and began to write;

_To whoever finds this letter,_

_My name is Ianto Jones. I'm fifteen years old, my mam is dead, she died about a year ago. I have an older sister named Rhiannon who has a head full of boys and shoes and my dad fucks me every night. He has done since I was twelve, long before my mam got sick. I alway thought she knew but she did nothing to stop him...nothing to save me_

_My Tad, he tells me it's my own fault. He tells me I'm too pretty to be left alone; he tells me I'm a flirt and a tease and it's me that makes him do these things. Sometime he makes me come and then he says that proves I enjoy what he's done to me and that I wanted it. For a while I believed him but I'm smart and I have done some research into abuse and found out that these are lies that lots of abusers tell their victims. I don't enjoy anything he does to me – I hate it, I hate it._

_In three weeks time I will be sixteen and I will be able to leave home legally, he won't be able to stop me – I can't wait. I have been working in the university library after school and at weekends and I've saved up a quite a lot of money. Mrs Davys the head librarian has offered me a room in her house for a very reasonable rent. One of the things I found out in the reading I did about sexual abuse is that people who are abused often feel powerless so I've tried really hard to take control of my own life. Thing is... when I think about my future, I'm really scared._

_I'm not scared of leaving home, why would I want to stay in that hell-hole? I'm not even scared of my Tad finding me; I think Mrs Davys has worked out what has been going on and she is more than a match for him. But...I've read a lot about the survivors of abuse, how difficult they find to make relationships later on in their lives, how much baggage they carry with them and how reluctant they are to trust people. What if I can't get anyone to love me? What if no-one ever wants me when they find out what my dad did to me? I remember being loved by my mam when I was a lot younger and it felt so wonderful; warm and safe; but for so long all I've known is pain and fear – what if that's all I'm supposed to feel for the rest of my life? My Tad, he tells me I'm damaged goods now and that means no-one will want me, so I'm scared that because of who my Tad has made me I'll never find someone to love me and, oh God, even if against all odds I do, what if I can't love them back? Suppose I'm gay? I mean I like girls, Sophie Crowther in my welsh literature class is gorgeous but I'm too frightened to talk to her, but then Simon, her twin brother is so beautiful I can hardly bear to look at him because of how he makes me feel. Maybe I'm bisexual – I dunno. I do know I'm confused and lonely – will it be like this forever?_

_So, I've made a plan. The first fifteen years of my life have been pretty shitty. Mrs Davys, she tells me that things get better as you get older but I look at Rhiannon and her life doesn't seem so great. However, Mrs Davys may have a point so what I have decided is this – I'll give it another fifteen years. If, on my thirtieth birthday I'm still lonely or abused or as sad as I am now, I'm going to kill myself. I've thought about doing it before now to be honest but it seems too much like letting my tad win. When I do it...if I do it... it will be my decision on my terms, not because some sick bastard can't leave my arse alone._

_I don't really have anyone to talk to about this which is why I'm rambling on a bit; bisexual abused people are not common in Newport. I only have a couple of friends and telling them I think I may be attracted to men will just get the shit kicked out of me, hence this letter. In theory writing all this down should make me feel better but I'm not sure it has. I'm going to put it in a bottle and chuck out it into the sea, float my fears out on the current until someone in a far off land will find them._

_Maybe I should try to end on a more hopeful note so here is a list of what I hope_

_I hope my life gets better_

_I hope, one day, someone will love me so much that they will remain by my side forever_

_I hope someday that I will find someone I can take care of._

_I hope that I find my soul mate_

_I hope I find love_

_I hope I don't have to kill myself when I am thirty._

_Thank you for listening, _

_Ianto Jones _

_Cardiff, Wales, UK _

Ianto paused and then, because there was still a little of the child lingering about the young man, with a slight smile added

_Europe, Northern Hemisphere, The World, The Solar System, The Universe, The Milky Way, Space._

He rolled the letter up tightly, sealed it in a plastic bag and slid it into the glass bottle that had contained his cider, screwing the cap on as tightly as he could. He scrambled to his feet and walked down to the edge of the water. For a while he just stood there, letting the water splash over the toes of his trainers, the neck of the bottle held loosely between his fingers gazing sightlessly at the horizon.

A tall figure appeared on the promenade behind Ianto and leaned upon the rails, 'Ianto' his father called, sharply, 'Ianto, time to leave. Come on, boy don't keep me waiting.'

With a grimace, Ianto drew back his arm and threw the bottle as far out into the bay as he possibly could, whispering 'please , let someone find this who will help me. For a moment he watched it bobbing in the water before an impatient 'IANTO' sent him scurrying back to where his father and sister were waiting for him. His hurry meant that he totally missed the brilliant flare of light that erupted out in the water; had he been watching he would have noticed that, once the light had faded the bottle, and its contents, had disappeared.

TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

**Sirius 21 – 3,000 earth years in the future**

The Time Agent, who at the moment was going under the name Maran Bo, winked flirtatiously as the pretty Axurian who was working behind the bar, grinning as the alien's skin turned a pale lavender signifying sexual arousal. He nudged his lanky blonde partner who was eyeing up the twin Zarcaniotes who had just walked in to the bar.

'I think we might be on to something' he said, nodding towards the Axurian who winked at him with three of its eyes.

His partner, Raja Rem, at least for the duration of their stay on this planet, rolled his eyes, 'what is it with you and tentacles, these day?' he snarked

Maran smirked, 'oh the pleasure that can be found in the warm clammy embrace of a tentacle cannot be over emphasised. Besides...' he cast a sideways glance at the twins who were quite openly eyeing he and his partner up, 'lots of orifices, lots of tentacles – what's not to love?'

'Hmm' Raja's eyes were going glassy at the thought and, to be truthful, Maran's trousers were getting a little tight also. The two men locked eyes and grinned.

'You take the twins and I'll take the bartender and we'll meet back at the rooms in about a nanon.'

'Shiny'

Maran swaggered over to the bar and raised two fingers in the air. The Axurian glided up to him and delicately wrapped the tip of its dominant tentacle around both of Maran's fingers. Maran shuddered as the essence of the Axurian slid into his mind. Maran transmitted a graphic image of what he and Raja had planned for the rest of the evening, chuckling quietly as the Axurian responded with an image of what it would like to do with Maran. Telepathically, Maran sent the time and location to their proposed tryst and received an acknowledgement. Looking deep into all seven of the Axurian's eyes Maran gently sucked the very end of the creatures tentacles into his mouth, smiling as the pale lavender of its skin deepened to orgasmic purple.

Glancing over to where Raja was seated, Maran attempted to grab his attention to signal to him that the Axurian was on board for their evening of pleasure but Raja was engrossed in seeing how far his could get his tongue down the throat of one of the Zarcaniote twins. Frowning Maran searched the bar for the other twin before the minute thrusting of Raja's hips and the slight disturbance of the table cloth clued him in. Throwing Raja an admiring glance, Maran decided to go for a short stroll to pick up supplies, before rendezvousing with his partner back at their lodgings.

* * *

The spaceport of Sirius 21 was widely held to be one of the scuzziest in the known universe; however a short walk through the port bought Maran to a wide expanse of pale green sand which constituted the shoreline of the only sea on the planet. In some ways it reminded Maran of where he had grown up and he had taken to wandering the dunes when being with Raja got a bit much. Recently he had been there almost every day.

Maran sat on his favourite rock and gazed out at the calm ocean; sometimes he wondered if the shallow, selfish life he and Raja led was all it was cracked up to be. Occasionally he would look at couples or triads as they walked by and tried to imagine what it would be like to be the centre of one person's universe, to be loved so completely that he would not want to share himself with anyone else. He was starting to think that it would be quite nice to have someone to love him like that

Suddenly a brilliant flash of orange light split the sky and something hit the sand next to Maran with a sizzling thump. Jumping to his feet Maran ran to investigate, prodding the glowing item cautiously with his boot. Noting that it seemed to be tightly sealed, he pushed it into the water until it looked cool enough to be handled. Warily Maran picked up the container and held it up for inspection. There seemed to be something inside.

His curiosity piqued, Maran hurried over to where the small inter-planetary flyer he shared with Raja was docked and made his way up to the flight deck. The A.I computer woke up

'Hello, Captain' she purred

'Hey Amelie' said Maran distractedly. He made his way over to the scanner bed, carefully unscrewing the top of the bottle he reached inside with a pair of forceps and pulled out a sealed plastic bag. He flattened it on the scanner and looked up to the ceiling, 'scan please Amelie.'

'Anything for you, Captain' hummed the computer. Maran pulled a face, 'has Raja been messing with your flirtation circuits again?' he asked testily.

'No this is all for you, your gorgeousness'

Maran rolled his eyes in despair, 'scan please'

'Fine.' How could a computer manage to insert a pout into its artificial voice?' wondered Maran. A violet light bathed the bag and its contents. 'There is no biological danger from this artefact,' announced Amelie, 'composition of the bag suggests it is from late twentieth century earth. Content shows as composite of organic and inorganic material. Organic portion consisting of cellulose, hemi-cellulose, lignin and or various compound of lignin (Na-lignate etc.) is approximately 70%. Inorganic portion consists of mainly filling and loading material such as calcium carbonate, clay, titanium oxide is approximately 30%. Hypothesis – content is writing paper. No hazard to life.'

'Wow, twentieth century, impressive' Jack put on a pair of white cotton gloves and cautiously removed the folded paper from its protective bag. Carefully he spread it out on the scanner bed and peered at it closely, 'it's writing' he said, 'but it's a language I don't know. Amelie?'

The violet light shone again, a thin beam this time that traversed the paper. The A.I unit gave a small electronic burble – the closest Amelie could mage to clearing her throat. Maran rolled his eyes, 'c'mon Amelie, let's have it'

'Very well, Sir. Language is English, message begins, " _To whoever finds this letter, My name is Ianto Jones. I'm fifteen years old, my mam is dead, she died about a year ago. I have an older sister named Rhiannon who has a head full of boys and shoes and my dad fucks me every night..." _

Maran stood stony faced as Amelie translated and read the entire letter, his heart was bleeding for this poor, far off, long deceased boy and he burned with rage at the torment his father was inflicting, had inflicted... whatever. 'Amelie, how old is this letter' asked Maran

'Approximately two earth hours old,' replied Amelie, 'equivalent to two nanons on this planet.'

'Two HOURS?' Maran was confused

'Hypothesis' declared Amelie, 'Bottle was sucked up by a rift in space and time and deposited here – time elapsed from release into sea in twentieth century and discovery on beach Sirius 21, two hours.'

Maran frowned, 'Can you reconstruct an image of this...' he glanced at the signature, 'this Ianto Jones?'

Amelie scanned the letter again, 'there is sufficient DNA material on paper and mouth of bottle to extrapolate an image. Warning: image can be no more that 75-80% accurate.'

Maran pulled up a stool and settled himself down comfortably, 'do it' he instructed.

Maran watched, fascinated as Amelie created a hologram before his very eyes. A tall, thin, sad eyed young man with sensitive features materialised in the cabin, Maran felt his mouth go dry; the boy was beautiful, too beautiful to be suffering in the manner described in the letter. An unfamiliar wave of tenderness swept over Maran, closely followed by a strong urge to protect this child at all costs. Tearing his eyes away from the vision before him, he cleared his throat, 'Amelie, age him by...say 10 years.'

'Affirmative, Captain.' The image wavered and reconstituted itself, a breath taking, sad eyed vision was projected before Maran Bo's eyes

'Oh sweet goddess, he is gorgeous' murmured Maran. 'Amelie, can you compute a way through this rift?'

There was silence for a good three minutes, which was enough to tell Maran all he needed to know, then 'negative Captain, parameters of rift are unpredictable, time stream element renders accurate navigation impossible with current technology.'

'Cavalsha' swore Maran.

**TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

Bo stood lost in thought for a few moments. If Amelie had been able to extrapolate a course through this rift in space and time, he could have used the flier to swoop in and rescue the boy. If he were honest with himself the role of avenging saviour was one he was quite partial to and fancied himself particularly suited to. It would also have had the major advantage of keeping his exploits off the Time Agency radar; as it was he would have Amelie triangulate all the data she did have so that he could carry out a short time jump to the appropriate time and place.

Maran pulled a disconsolate face, if he had been able to take the flier he could have scooped this unhappy boy out of his horrible life and shown him the stars, now he would have to use his wrist strap which not only limited his options but also would alert the Time Agency to his unauthorised activities which would undoubtedly carry severe repercussions. He gave a heavy sigh, 'OK Amelie, compute the settings to take me back to 21st century Cardiff,' he glanced at the printed translation of Ianto's letter that lay before him, 'no. Make that Newport, wherever the hell that is.'

Amelie gave her usual electronic burble, 'Newport (Welsh: Casnewydd) was a cathedral and university city and unitary authority in south east Wales. It was located on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn estuary, approximately 11 miles (18 km) east of Cardiff.'

'Excellent' smiled Maran stoking Amelie's console with his fingertips, drawing an electronic purr from the A.I. unit, 'you pull as much data as you can about the place and that time period, transfer it to my wrist strap, try to organise permission for me to access records and databases of that timeline. I want to be able to find this boy's father'

'Captain,' Amelie sounded severe, 'do I need to remind you of the dangers of tinkering with timelines? Why is this boy so important to you? What in his letter has moved you to take this risk?'

Bo frowned, Amelie developed scruples at the most inopportune times, to say nothing of appearing to be evolving an inappropriate curiosity, 'how long will it take you to get me all the information I need?' he snapped, ignoring her questions, someone needed to put this stroppy computer in her place.

A long pause, then...'at least two nanons' replied the computer

'OK' Maran nodded, a thought struck him, 'if I write a reply to this letter in galactic common could you transcribe it into...what is the original language of the document?'

'English' muttered Amelie, grudgingly

'Right, can you translate it into English but also put it into my hand writing?' Somehow, it seemed important to Maran that his reply to Ianto Jones was a personal as he could make it.

Amelie huffed and Maran knew she had forgiven him for his proposed time indiscretion, 'write your letter, Captain and I will collate all the data for you. I will transcribe your reply.'

'Thank you Amelie.'

The A.I unit's lights dimmed and a quiet humming could be heard as more and more of her logic units turned towards considering the task she had been set.

* * *

Maran pulled an electronic pad and stylus towards him, settled himself comfortably on one of the acceleration couches and began to write.

_Dear Ianto _

_When you threw your message into the sea off the coast of Cardiff I don't expect that you thought it would travel as far as it has. My name is...' Maran paused, was he willing to share his true name with this unknown boy from the past, he shook his head, the truth was too dangerous even for a long dead child, he returned to the letter, 'my name at the moment is Maran Bo, I am writing this with the help of my ships artificial intelligence unit on the planet Sirius 21 which is in the Vasham Galaxy. I know that won;t mean anything to you, suffice to say it's a long way from Earth. My A.I unit tells me that 3,000 years of linear time have passed since you wrote your letter but, thanks to a rift in space and time, when I received it, only two hours of Earth time had passed. I know this is very confusing and complicated and it isn't really as important as what I want to say to you._

_Ianto, you sound like an amazing person; you are brave, intelligent and strong. What your father is doing to you is beyond evil, none of this, NONE OF IT, is your fault, I know that you know that but I hope that you believe it as well. Your father is a manipulative bastard and will, I'm certain, he will get everything he deserves and then some. You are strong enough to survive this and I know you will not let him win._

_Technology in my time is advanced enough to show me what you look like. Well, my computer was able to use the DNA material you deposited on the letter and its container to extrapolate an image of what you probably look like. You probably don't want to her someone else tell you that your looks are striking. I imagine hearing such things from your abusive father would make you suspicious of such sentiments from a total stranger. I guess being given compliments makes you afraid that more abuse is coming your way. Nonetheless, I have to tell you (and I pray you will believe me) you are a beautiful individual; you will have no problem finding someone to falling love with you in the future. Your pain and distress was clear in every word of the letter that found its way to me but please I am begging you don't destroy yourself if you can find any way to avoid doing so._

_I understand the pain of being alone. I understand the loneliness of being afraid. I understand the fear of being unloved. I lost my little brother when I was just a child. My mother always blamed me for his death and, by association, that of my father who died soon after. Almost overnight my dwelling unit went from being a happy, loving, family home to a cold and judgmental place, full of pain and angst. Like you I got out as soon as I legally could – although I wasn't in any way as prepared as you seem to be. I won't lie to you, it was hard for me at first, I was living on the streets and I did whatever I had to do to survive. As soon I was 17, I joined the Time Agency. Sometimes I wonder if the brutality of the training dissolved the last remnants of my childhood. Unlike you, I abdicated responsibility for myself by joining a military style organisation which told me when to eat, what to do, what to think, when to sleep but you are trying hard to take control of your life and that is so impressive and bodes well for the type of man you will become if you let yourself._

_You ended your letter with a list of thing that you hope for – please let me respond with a list of what I hope for you –_

_I hope, one day, you will recognise yourself as the amazing man that you are_

_I hope whoever you choose to love will be worthy of you_

_I hope that when you find love you keep it for as long as you live_

_I hope your life changes enough to give you all the wonderful things you deserve_

_You deserve all these things and, selfishly, I'll end with some wishes of my own –_

_I wish it could be me that fulfils all your hopes._

_I wish I could be your soul mate._

_I wish it could be me that you love._

_Please stay strong and become happy – the universe cannot afford to lose someone as gorgeous and as courageous as you. _

_Maran Bo._

Maran put down the stylus and flexed his cramped hand; it had been many cycles since he had written anything without using either a keyboard or voice recognition. He placed it, with Ianto Jones' original letter in the plastic bag and forced both back into the bottle. Standing in the ramp of the flyer, Maran threw the bottle as far as he possibly could into the calm waters adjacent to where the ship was docked. The suns were setting and their light on the water dazzled Maran's eyes as the bottle hit the water, so if there was a rift flare, Maran did not see it

* * *

Back on the flight deck, he wandered over to the food replicator and dialled himself a large hypervodka slammer. His gaze drifted to hologram of Ianto Jones which still wavered indistinctly in the corner of the cabin. He sighed, the desolate feeling of loneliness that had assailed him on the beach returned, 'someone like you, Ianto Jones, I could easily stand to love and be loved by someone like you.'

The A.I unit burbled, breaking his introspection, 'Captain, I have the information you requested, I have sent the time space coordinate to you wrist strap.'

Maran grinned, 'thanks, Amelie, when I get back I'll reconfigure your logic circuits – just me and you for as long as it takes baby'

A soft electronic sigh echoed around the cabin, 'Captain, that would be divine, however I fear that I still have reservations about the morality of this enterprise. My programming will not permit me to participate in an action that may produce a time paradox.'

'I can change your programming at any time' muttered Maran under his breath, 'just need to get me a sledge hammer.'

Amelie carried on as if Maran had not interrupted, 'so I have compromised by developing a mission protocol that stays within the limits of Time Agency procedures.' She paused as if expecting Maran to comment but he remained silent, 'I have programmed your wrist strap to take you to the approximate place and time, you will have access to social records that will help you track down the Jones family, with the information you have it should not be too difficult.'

The grin on Maran's face was bright enough to eclipse the brightest of Sirius 21's three suns. 'that sounds shiny...' he began but Amelie spoke over him

'I have redirected power from the ship's reactors to power my hard drive and so will have enough power to be able to monitor history in order to ensure that you don't change the unchangeable. Because you are going so far back, it will take your vortex manipulator 18 hours to recharge and then it will automatically return you to this spot and this time. You won't even miss your liaison with your Axurian and twin Zarcaniote twins.'

'Shiny'

'I must warn you Captain,' said Amelie, 'Once I have locked on to you in the past, if at any time I think my protocols are in danger of violation I will snatch you back with no warning . You can't bring the boy back with you; am I clear?'

Maran was getting restless, 'yeah, yeah, crystal clear' he said impatiently

Amelie flashed the lights in the control room off and on again, a sure sign of her anger, 'you are not listening to me Bo, you can't bring him back, not shouldn't, not mustn't – can't. The time/distance parameters mean that transporting a passenger is impossible with a type II V.M such as you have, apart from that the stresses caused by vortex travel would kill a 20th century human and probably you as well. Do you understand?'

Maran did. His vortex manipulate began to beep 'Vortex jump in 5...4...3...2...1

As the familiar tug of the vortex jump pulled at Maran's abdominal muscles the only thought in his mind was, '_hold on Ianto Jones, I'm gonna save you_.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Newport, July 1999.**

With a gasp and a muffled cry Ianto Jones sat bolt upright in his bed, pulled from a nightmare by a dream. This had been happening to him with monotonous regularity for the last couple of weeks. He had been in the midst of his usual night terror; it never varied, he was sprawled on a bed in a dimly lit room, held down by his father as he was mercilessly buggered, sobbing in agony and fear as his father's large hand reached around his slim hips and tugged roughly at his penis, hot words were breathed roughly in his ear, telling him that he was hard, that he was obviously enjoying himself, that if he came it just proved what a cock slut he was. Tears of shame poured down the young man's face but just as his father was about to make him come, the door of the room crashed open and a tall indistinct figure stood in the doorway. A low American growl filled the room

'Let. Him. Go'

In the nightmare Ianto's father had pulled himself out of his son's body, although he had maintained his grip on the back of the boy's neck, 'who the fuck are you?'

'Let. Him. Go'

'Or what' sneered Ianto's father, 'you'll kill me?'

The shadow man laughed, 'oh, I'm gonna kill you either way. You let him go now, I kill you quick.'

In the nightmare Ianto's father made an incoherent noise and leapt towards the tall stranger, they grappled and for a short time only their harsh breathing and the sounds of the scuffling could be heard. Then, Ianto saw the arm of the stranger move once, twice and his father made a small sobbing noise before collapsing on the floor in an unmoving heap.

This was usually the point when the nightmare segued into a dream as the tall figure bent to wipe his blade on the corpse of Ianto's father before striding across the room and tenderly moving the terrified boy into his arms.

'Relax,' the soft American tones dissolved all Ianto's fear and replaced it with warm feeling of security and peace, almost unconsciously he nuzzled closer to the stranger curling into his embrace, this man was safety personified. The man settled onto the bed next to Ianto, the better to hold him, bright blue eyes regarded him sombrely 'I won't hurt you, I promise. I won't lay a finger on you. I just want you to feel safe and be happy.' Soft lips placed a long, sweet kiss on Ianto's forehead and then the man disentangled himself from Ianto's hold drawing a shrill cry of despair from the young man. It was this cry that jerked Ianto from sleep to wakefulness.

Leaning back on his pillows Ianto wonderingly touched his forehead, the memory of the nocturnal visitor's kiss was still burning on his skin. He listened intently, the house was silent – his father must be unconscious with drink or seeking his pleasure elsewhere that night, either way Ianto was safe for a little while. He thought again about his dream, the feel of the tall man's arms around him, the soft wash of his breath against his cheek and the amazing scent that seemed to be leaching from the man's pores. Ianto could feel himself getting hard at the thought; he slid his hand down his body and grasped his penis. He rarely masturbated, fearful, thanks to the comments of his Father, f what his fantasies might reveal about his sexuality, but thinking about those seductive eyes, the soft rub of the man's cheek against his skin...it was all too much. His cock was hot and hard in his hand as Ianto slowly stroked himself, wishing it was the stranger's hand sliding over his skin, cupping his balls, smearing pre-come over the sensitive head; with a muffled gasp Ianto came and relaxed boneless onto the mattress, wondering what it all meant.

* * *

**Newport - The Next Evening **

Maran Bo materialised in a small, disgustingly filthy alleyway behind a fish and chip shop. The nausea and dizziness that was the traditional accompaniment to time travel with a Type II Vortex Manipulator was exacerbated by the smell of greasy food and some indefinable odour that was uniquely specific to the grubby passageway. With a low groan, he slumped against the dirty wall and threw up neatly behind a convenient wheelie bin. Pushing himself away from the sticky wall Bo staggered out into the street, blinking as the bright lights of the pubs and clubs assaulted his senses;he lurched towards a bench, hoping to sit down and pull his scattered wits together before finding, slightly too late, that it was already occupied by an adolescent couple locked in a tight embrace. The young man reluctantly prised himself away from the girl, who was plastered close to his body, long enough to throw Maran a dirty look and growl 'fuck off, mate'

Maran held up his hands in what he hoped was a placatory manner, 'Whoa, sorry dude – Just passing though. Erm could you tell me the date?'

'The date?' the boy stared at Maran as if he had asked for a Pteranadon

'Yeah, what day, what month...what year – the date

'August 4th 1999'

Maran relaxed, not too far out then. 'What time is it?'

The young guy gave Maran a pitying look '9.30 – at night'

Bo winked at the young man, 'thanks, enjoy the rest of your evening.' He tipped a cheeky salute to the boy's companion, 'Miss' and swaggered off into the night followed by the sounds of the girl's giggles.

* * *

Using his wrist strap to access an ATM, Maran soon found himself possessed of sufficient funds to book himself into the swankiest hotel he could find. Pouring himself a malt whisky from the well stocked bar in his suite, Maran began to scan the electoral roll and the most recent census data for a family Jones with two children, Ianto and Rhiannon. Sending the details to his futuristic PDA he was able to view the findings through the flat screen TV on the wall of the room. Stripping down to his underwear, Maran settled back and began to read.

He located the family's address easily enough, from the most recent census data and was pleased to note that the home of Idris Jones and his two children was not too far from where he decided to make his base; he could walk there, easily – no chance of inconvenient cab drivers remembering his face or the address from which he had been picked or taken to. His eyebrows climbed almost to his hairline when a search for Idris Jones bought up several local newspaper reports about a local headmaster and his successful school. At first Maran had reservations that he had the right Jones but a picture of the man "with daughter, Rhiannon and son, Ianto" confirmed it beyond doubt.

Bo screwed his face up in disgust – the newspaper reports were unanimously laudatory – seemed like this Jones guy was some kind of educational wizard. The school he had taken over just a year beforehand had been a disaster area, poor attendance rates, high levels of teenage pregnancy, accusations of drug abuse and appalling examination results but since Jones had taken over as head attendance was running at 98% and the most recent exam results put the academy in the top quartile of all Welsh schools.

'How on earth did he manage that' mused Bo aloud, then a quote from a former student in the single derogatory article he had found about Idris Jones caught his eye.

'_The thing we all learnt, right from day one, is that you don't mess with Mr. Jones. The first school assembly he took, a couple of the lads were messing about – nothing bad, just flicking some girl's ponytail. Mr. Jones, he marched right down from off the stage and dragged them both back up there and he striped them naked in front of the whole school and made them cane each other whilst we all watched. The two boys they said he couldn't do that to them but Mr Jones, he said he had met with all our parents and they had all given him permission to discipline us in any way he wanted to'_

'Fuck' muttered Maran, 'that's clever, indulge your perversions in public under the guise of benefitting the kids, get the parents complicit and the kids in line. The council will only care about the performance of the school, not how that improved performance was achieved.' He did a quick search on the name of the journalist who had written the paper but they seemed to have disappeared completely, the last internet mention of their name being 9 months previously.

With a frown Maran widened his search to see if he could find out more about the young man whose heartbreaking letter had started him on this mad mission in the first place. There really did not seem to be much, a short report that one Ianto Jones, age 14, had won the short story prize at the Cardiff Eisteddfod, a couple of pictures of Idris Jones with his children and a report on a school play which gave the honours of the evening to Ianto Jones who had "brought an emotional depth to Romeo that was unusual in one so young". The somewhat grainy picture did at least serve to confirm that Amelie's reconstruction had been fairly accurate and Maran was, once again, struck by the young man's potential beauty.

A sealed file from the Child Protection Services was easily hacked into and the contents made Maran curse inventively in several languages. It seemed that Rhiannon, Ianto's sister, did not have a head only full of shoes and boys – she had on more than one occasion contacted child protection with her concerns about her brother, outlining her fears that he was being abused by their father. What enraged Maran was the cavalier way in which Rhiannon's worries were dismissed. Phrases such as "attention seeking 19 year old", "lashing out at father, possible personality clash" and the one that infuriated Maran the most and the one that closed the file down "Mr Jones is a well respected member of the community, his strict methods have turned around one of the poorest schools in Newport, these allegations are the spiteful fantasies of a 19 year old who is clearly rebelling against her disciplinarian father"

He sat back on the bed and decided he would have to re-evaluate his opinion of Ianto Jones' father. Bo had assumed the man would be brutish and unintelligent, a thug. Instead, the reports showed him to be an intellectual man, clever and manipulative; someone who would be suspicious of someone poking around his business. Coupled with that was the knowledge that he had only about fifteen hours left to act. Reluctantly Maran discarded his original plan which had involved snatching Jones from the street and torturing him for as long as he could before he had to jump back to his own time and decided to go for the more direct approach.

Despite the side effects of VM time travel, Maran felt restless and agitated, he couldn't relax, couldn't settle. Eventually he decided to walk to the Jones' house, check out the lay out and formulate his plan. He pulled on his jacket, pausing only to ensure that his gun was in the carefully concealed holster and his knife was safely stashed in his boot. He tucked a handful of cash in hispockets and headed out of the door.


	5. Chapter 5

**Newport – the same night**

Ianto could not rest; he had gone to bed early, just after 9. He had been feeling exhausted all day and had attributed it to his disturbed sleep the night before. However, now he was in bed, he was finding it impossible to sleep; he switched his light on but could not focus on his reading. Agitated he climbed out of bed, pulled off his tee-shirt and paced around in his small room. His skin felt prickly, as if it was carrying an electrical charge, he wouldn't have been surprised if he had begun to glow like the filament a light bulb. He looked at himself in the wardrobe mirror and almost didn't recognize himself. The pupils of his eyes were dilated with only the merest hint of blue at their edges, his lips were slightly parted and he breathed heavily as though he had been running, there was a slight flush to his pale skin. He thought that he looked...excited...anticipatory as if he was waiting for a lover. He ran his fingers over his exposed chest and experimentally squeezed his nipples, the resultant hot flush of arousal made him gasp and he dropped his hands back to his sides and turned away from the image that the mirror presented to him. Ianto moved to the window, opened it wide and looked out into the night. A light breeze caressed his bare skin and he shivered expectantly.

'Something is coming,' he whispered.

* * *

Meanwhile, Maran was heading towards the Jones' family home, using his wrist strap to guide him. He moved with an easy confident pace, just another man heading home from a quiet night at the pub. As he got closer to Cherry Tree Close, he slowed his pace, warily but unobtrusively scanning the environment for twitching curtains or nosey neighbours, however the estate remained the epitome of middle class suburbia where once the curtains were closed the outside world ceased to exist. Bo gave a wolfish grin, everything was working in his favour; his grin got even wider when he spotted a tall figure striding somewhat erratically in the same direction as himself. He was sure he recognised his outline from the grainy photos in the newspapers he had reviewed earlier. Maran increased his pace and drew next to the man, grasping him by his arm, spinning him to grin brightly into his startled face.

'Idris? Idris Jones?'

The tall man turned unsteadily and squinted vaguely in Maran's general vicinity, he had been drinking – quite a lot, if the clouds of whisky tainted breath wafting in Maran's direction were any indication. 'Do I know you, Sir?' he slurred

Bo pasted an awed expression on his face, 'My name is...' he cast a glance around for inspiration, a small black cat strolled past with the name "Jack" engraved on his collar, 'Jack, er...Jack,' he suddenly remembered the name of the receptionist at his hotel, 'Harkness.'

Jones started at him, 'Jack Harkness?'

'Yeah' Maran was getting into his stride, 'Dr Jack Harkness, I'm an educational researcher from Illinois Educational Board. I'm a big fan of your work.'

Jones began walking up the path towards his house, seeming unfazed by the fact that Maran was sticking close to his side, matching him stride for stride, 'so you decided to accost me in the street or rather on my doorstep instead of making an appointment like a sensible person?'

Maran/ Jack leant against the porch, effectively stopping Jones from entering his house, 'oh I will, I will but I just couldn't t wait to meet you, I was at a loose end at the hotel and I knew where you lived from the press interviews you have done, so I thought, what the hell, I'll take a chance.' He risked a laugh, 'Couldn't wait to meet the man who had got those little shits under control.'

Jones perched himself in the low wall that separated his garden from his neighbour's and looked closely at Maran's face, 'little shits?' he enquired, with interest, 'is that how you view the young minds entrusted to our care, Dr...erm...Harkness?'

Maran smiled conspiratorially, 'aren't they though? Strutting around like they own the world? No respect for authority, no interest in learning, no desire for intellectual capital, no depth to their personalities; think they know everything when really they know nothing. The girls are empty headed enough but the boys, smart mouthed little bastards all sass and sauce, the only thing their mouths should be used for is sucking...' he broke off and looked away as if he had said too much.

Jones swayed closer enveloping Bo once more in a miasma of whisky fumes, 'you read the report about the two boys who were stripped and made to cane each other in front of the whole school' he said accusingly, then he chuckled, 'that got their attention alright, I can tell you.'

Maran licked his lips, 'it sounded most...arousing' he murmured

Ianto's father leaned even closer, for one frozen second Maran thought he was going to kiss him but Jones was simply manoeuvring to whisper in his ear, 'I had the most incredible wank when I got back to my office,' he admitted, 'and thinking about it kept me hard for most of the day. Ianto got it good and strong that night I can tell you.

Maran struggled to keep his face neutral, although inside he was seething 'Ianto? '

Jones gestured wildly towards the house, 'he's my son,' the expansiveness of his gesture nearly overbalanced him and he grabbed hold of Maran's arm, tightly, 'my own personal fuck toy,' he whispered conspiratorially.

Maran glanced upwards the window of the small room, he could see the shadow of someone watching them, the window was open and, even though their voices were low Maran was certain that the watcher could hear every word clearly.

'Yeah?' he murmured encouragingly

'Yeah, kids at school, there is only so much you can do to them even with the parents on your side, but I am a person of good standing in the community, respected and more importantly untouchable' Jones gave a high pitched giggle that made Maran feel nauseous once more, 'but once at home, well I'm master of my own domain. The boy has to do what he is told. He's 16 soon, has some mad idea of leaving home, running away from me but I've got a special gift for him.' He fumbled in his overcoat pocket and pulled out a large silver butt plug with "happy birthday Ianto" engraved on the side. 'He'll wake up on his birthday to find all his clothes gone and this up his arse – my very own living, crying, whimpering, pleading, sex toy.'

A low moan of distress came from above them. Maran stepped back, revolted by Jones; he had encountered evil before but never in such a self-satisfied, matter of fact form. The man before him disgusted him on a visceral level, 'you sick fucker' he snarled, 'if I had the time I would cut your fucking dick off and shove it up your arse'

'Whaat?' Jones' outraged voice echoed around the small close, he blinked several times trying to understand how and why Bo's attitude had changed so dramatically. From the corner of his eye, Maran noticed that the watcher in the small window was leaning further out the better to see and hear.

'You heard me,' snarled Bo,' I'd cut your cock off and then I'd take your balls and shove them so far down your throat they could say hello to your appendix.'

Jones tried to get away from Maran but the low garden wall upon which he had propped himself effectively trapped him, 'who are you? Why are you here?'

'Yes' a gentle whisper drifted down from the room above, 'who are you?'

Maran twisted Jones's collar tight and glanced up so that the light of the street lamp fell upon his face for a second or two, he heard a soft gasp as if of recognition, 'I'm here because Ianto Jones asked for help.' He turned his attention back to the snivelling crying bully before him, 'I'm here because you have put this boy through hell and it has to stop. The bad news for you is that now I have spoken with you I know the only way to stop you is to kill you, you fucking pathetic excuse for a man.'

'Please' Idris Jones was crying helplessly

Maran gave a feral grin, 'Ask me not to'

'Please' sobbed Jones, 'don't do this'

Maran patted his cheek encouragingly, 'now beg me, beg me to stop.'

'I'm begging you; please don't hurt me, please. I'll do anything but don't hurt me'

Maran leant in close to whisper in Jones' ear 'Is that how your son did it? Is that how Ianto begged? You don't deserve any mercy you piece of shit' Swift as thought Maran took a large chunk of Jones' ear between his teeth, bit it off and spat it into next door's garden, wrenching a shrill scream form the man. Then, before Idris had a chance to react, Maran retrieved the knife from the sheath in his boot and slid it up and under Jones' ribs and into his heart. Jones gave a soft sigh and collapsed into the flower bed.

Maran bent down and wiped the blade of his knife on the body at his feet and re-sheathed the weapon in a single fluid movement.

For a brief moment everything was still and silent, then a hushed Welsh voice floated down 'Diolch yn fawr.'

For a few minutes Maran and Ianto stared at each other in the diffuse light of a street lamp, silently drinking each other in. Maran could just make out a shy, hesitant smile on the young man's face which, he was sure, matched the one on his own. The moment was broken by a sudden commotion behind the young man.

'Ianto' a strident female voice cut though the night, 'come 'ere. Something has happened to Tad. I think someone has hurt him, there's a man in the front garden. I've phoned the Heddlu. Yan, come away from that window right now!' a pale pair of female hands grasped the young man's shoulders and pulled him back from the window and out of Maran's line of sight.

Almost at the same time Maran's wrist strap beeped urgently. He flipped the cover and gazed in disbelief as a small hologram of Amelie floated in the air before his startled eyes,

'_Bo, I'm pulling you out. Do you hear me? A paradox is being created! You need to leave, right now! Prepare yourself for emergency vortex jump in 3...2...1'_

'What?' Maran was furious, 'no, no! Wait' but the brilliant glare of the vortex took him without further warning. In the distance the sound of sirens split the quiet night.


	6. Chapter 6

Maran Bo materialized on the flight deck of his ship, furious and shaking.

'Amelie – what the fuck!?'

The A.I unit lowered the lights in a vain attempt to create a soothing atmosphere, 'Captain I had no choice. History was fraying, you were about to cause a factor five paradox. You were contravening my programming and I warned you what would happen if that occurred. '

Maran slumped onto the floor, 'How? How could that be? I was so careful. Everything was going so well.'

Amelie injected some pseudo-sympathy into her voice, the best she could ever hope to achieve 'According to the historical records I found, Idris Jones was indeed murdered on his doorstep in late July 1999. The perpetrator was never found and forensic evidence was scanty.'

'But that's what was happening' moaned Maran, 'Everything was shiny. The bastard was dead, no mess, no witnesses. I was clean'

'No' said Amelie, 'the records suggest that the boy, Ianto Jones was a witness, a neighbour from a house across the road saw him watching the whole thing and reported that to the police; his sister, who was at home that night as well, also confirmed that she found her brother watching the events from his bedroom window. He consistently refused to co-operate with the murder investigation. All he would say is that he saw nothing and only heard indistinguishable murmurs underneath his window. His testimony never changed, he never wavered in his story.'

Maran smiled, sadly, 'he saw, he heard everything. He saw me kill him, he even thanked me. Gods he is so loyal! That's consistent with history; how can that cause a factor five paradox? '

Because of the way history was fraying' replied Amelie, 'tell me, did you connect with Ianto in any way?'

Maran actually blushed, 'we had a moment, just eye contact, but it was...intense' he admitted.

'Hmm' Amelie produced a short burst of static which Maran recognized as her way of tapping her non-existent fingers as she thought, it was an affectation he meant to remove from her programming when he got the chance, 'I checked my calculations with Ziggy the supercomputer at the Quantum Leap Project.'

Maran straightened 'The Quantum Leap Project was closed down in 3022' he said

Amelie giggled, 'you don't close down a computer like Ziggy, silly Captain. Just because the humans gave up on the project, it doesn't mean that Ziggy did. According to Ziggy, and I would trust him over you, if your...moment...had lasted for a further 20 seconds you would have been apprehend by the police. You would never have been allowed to see each other again. Ianto would have spent all of his inheritance, everything he owned and more, to pay for your defence, it would bankrupt him. Ziggy predicts a 88.6% likelihood that you would receive a life sentence and that, because of his support of you, Ianto would end up disowned by his sister and living on the street.'

Maran closed his eyes 'Oh sweet Goddess, no!'

Amelie continued remorselessly, Ziggy also predicted a 96.8% probability that Ianto would die of either a drugs or sexual disease related problem before the age of 23 and that is what was causing the paradox'

Maran frowned, 'why?'

'Ziggy was unclear but something Ianto Jones does will impact hugely on the peace and wellbeing of our galaxy. If he dies young there will be consequences for the galaxy. Ziggy is still working on it but he isn't sure that he can filter the information to give us more detail, some confusion about the name apparently and as it stands he can guarantee that his predictions are no more that 43% accurate and there is a 10% margin of error in each direction.'

Bo slumped to the floor and rested his forehead on his knees, the impact of what Amelie was telling him was plunging him into an emotional maelstrom. A huge wave a of relief swept over him, if Ianto was going to be of some importance to the universe then the likelihood that he did follow through with his plan to kill himself on his thirtieth birthday that he had outlined in his bottle message was a slim one, but then he reminded himself that Ziggy's prediction were less than robust; and what could that thing possibly be – how could an obscure Welsh boy from the late twentieth century be of such importance? Surely Ziggy must have got it wrong. On the other hand, the young man was remarkable, the thought that Ianto would have been so loyal to him based upon such a fleeting encounter bought a lump to Bo's throat and made his heart swell with love. _I need to get back to him_, thought Maran, with a growing sense of astonishment_, I love him, I can't lose him, no matter what. _He gave a huge sigh.

'Amelie, how long would it take you to compute when in Ianto Jones' timeline I could safely jump back without causing galaxy wide disaster?'

'Maran, No'

Maran raised his eyes, 'how long, Amelie?'

'I don't know, Captain,' Maran knew how much it had cost the A.I unit to admit that, 'I will need to confer with Ziggy, maybe set up some test algorithms, these are delicate calculations that will require intense consideration, if we are not going to rip the fabric of history. I'm not even sure that it is possible.'

Maran was relentless, 'how long?'

Amelie's patience snapped, 'At least four nanons, if I can convince Ziggy to help me, twelve, maybe if I have to do it on my own but I'm not completely sure I am capable of this level of time navigation. Go back to your lodgings and your despicable partner who by now will have the Axurian and both the Zarcaniotes, well warmed up; leave me to work and I will notify you when I have an answer for you.'

'But...'

'Get out, Bo, if you are insistent I do this then let me get on with it for all our sakes'

* * *

Disconsolately Maran left the space port and made his way back to the domestic unit he and Raja were sharing. As he got closer his steps slowed, through the open window Maran could hear the moans of his partner as he encouraged the Axurian to wrap another tentacle around one of the Zarcaniote's cock to providing more friction. Glancing in at the window Maran got a confused impression of pale flesh coupled with the purple hued skin of the Axurian and the pale green flesh tone of the Zarcaniote. One of the twins was seated behind Raja who was impaled comfortably on his cock whilst the Axurian lay alongside them with number of its tentacles in Raja's arse and the rest manipulating the cock of the second Zarcaniote who had extended it's oral cavity to suck Raja and the Axurian to completion. Maran watched for a few minutes then realised with a shock that he wasn't in the slightest bit turned on. He pulled a face, this was the first time ever he was not aroused by the sight, the sounds or the possibility of sex, muttering 'what have you done to me Ianto Jones' he turned away to head back to the beach.

On his way back to the beach, Maran paused in front of the small bar he had been in not...he consulted his wrist strap...not half a nanon ago. He gave a wry smile, time travel really fucked with your clocks, he had lived through roughly six hours he reckoned and yet he was back on Sirius 21 barely before the table top condensation ring caused by his glass had dried. He considered going back to the bar for another few drinks of the local ale for which he had acquired quite a taste, before recalling that one of the first rules of vortex travel was to always be well hydrated, so regretfully he turned away from the inn and crossed the road to purchase some bottled water from a street vendor.

Inside the bar, a tall woman with pale turquoise hair was peering through the window at Maran. 'Cavalsha' she cursed, 'he's not coming in'

Her partner glanced up indifferently, 'so?' he questioned, 'at least we know he is here, all we need to do is follow him. We can take him anywhere'

The woman tutted impatiently, 'I know that Grainger but if we could have got him into one of the back rooms of this prestigious establishment,' sarcasm dripped from her tone, ' we could have dealt with him neatly and quietly without drawing attention to ourselves.'

'Yeah,' muttered Grainger rebelliously, 'IF we could have got him into a back room'

His partner stood up, leaning over to cup Grainger's cock and balls through his tunic, her position meant that the man's nose was engulfed in her impressive cleavage, 'you do know who he is right?' she said softly, 'you must know his reputation, do you think he would turn us down?'

Grainger shifted back slightly in his chair and gave a hungry grin as he slid his own hand down to moist spot between her legs, 'you are right, of course, Ralijke. He'd never turn down a pussy like yours'

'Or a cock like yours' purred Ralijke. A movement across the street caught her attention, 'he's on the move,' she hissed, swiftly gathering up her possessions, 'c'mon'

* * *

Maran wandered aimlessly with no real objective or destination in mind, swigging from his large bottle of water as he did so. He could not get the image of Ianto Jones out of his head, the boy was lovely and now that Maran had seen him in the flesh he could see the traces of the gorgeous man that he would become. The look on the boy's face when Maran had looked up at his window as he taunted Idris Jones with promises of violence had jolted him. It was almost as if Ianto recognised him but that was impossible. The impression Maran had was that Ianto recognised him not for his face but for his heart, the look on the young man's face was that of someone acknowledging a kindred soul.

He sighed heavily and looked around, paying attention to where he was for the first time. His feet had bought him back to his own ship.

Maran glanced at his wrist strap, he had been wandering for nearly three nanons, he wondered if he should risk going inside to see how Amelie and Ziggy were getting on, he couldn't believe how much he wanted to be with Ianto Jones, he had never believed in love at first sight, dismissing it as the sad delusion of the hopeless and loveless but the moment he had stared into that face and heard those soft Welsh tones Maran had felt as if he had found a home. He could picture a grown up Ianto wrapped securely in his arms as they slept together in a large soft bed, he thought about how wonderful it would be to wake up next to the man and arouse him gently with judicious use of lips and tongue until that gravelly voice was begging to be taken.

So lost was Maran in his fantasy that he was taken totally surprise when a beautiful turquoise haired woman sidled up to him, pushed him up against the side of his ship, moved in close and ran a fluorescent pink nail down his chest, 'Hello handsome' she murmured seductively.

Maran frowned, 'do I know you?'

The woman pressed closer, trapping him against the ship. Over her shoulder Maran could see a strikingly handsome man moving towards them and began to struggle. The woman tangled her hands in his thick dark hair and banged it with considerable force into the side of the flier, a number of times, causing Bo's vision to blur momentarily.

'We know you' said the man, 'Agent 200/alpha/813/mu, currently operating under the name Maran Bo you are charged with two counts of unauthorised use of a vortex manipulator, two counts of unlicensed time travel and one count of attempting to provoke a factor five paradox thereby endangering existence across the seven galaxies in contravention of Time Agency Directive 90/269/TA.' He nodded towards the woman who was still restraining the struggling Maran. She leaned even closer and captured Maran's mouth in a long kiss.

Maran recognised the sweet tingling taste on his lips, paralysing lip gel, 'you bitch' he slurred, 'we...we are on the same side. Please, please just gimme...' His head was swimming but he was frantically trying to beg them to give him just a nanon more of freedom. He was sure that by the Amelie would have an answer for him and if the Goddess was on his side he could slip back into the past and settle there happily with the man who he was now thinking of as the love of his life. He couldn't fight it, his eyes slipped closed. As he collapsed to the floor the last thing he saw was Grainger and Ralijke high fiving each other.

* * *

When Maran recovered he was furious to find that the two time agents had had the temerity to strap him down on his own scanner bed, winding the cord awkwardly around Maran's arm above his V.M. From the corner of his eye he could see the green light of Amelie's camera – she was watching. Maran struggled uselessly; he turned his head to glare at the two time agents who were lolling carelessly against a console watching him, 'who the fuck are you?

It was the woman who answered him, 'Ralijke Johansson and my colleague over there is Grainger Wakeford. We are Time Agency law enforcement and you, Agent Bo are in deep, deep pranalo . In a case like this your right to a trial of your peers at the Agency is rescinded.'

Wakeford turned to face Bo, the instrument in his hands making the restrained man trash angrily against his bonds. Wakeford gave an evil grin and Maran knew without doubt that the man was thoroughly enjoying the fear and distress he was causing. He lifted the memory ripper, tilting it so that it glinted in the lights of the cabin. Recognising it, Maran felt a cold coil fear swirling in his gut for the first time.

'Please, no' he whispered.

Grainger smiled, he knew Bo's reputation and was thrilled to have this notorious agent at his mercy and begging. He grinned over at Johansson, read the sentence he said as he approached Maran, revelling at the fear in the man's eyes.

Ralijke began to read in a monotonous tone, 'by the authority of the Time Agency and in according to the punishment tariff associated with directive 90/269/TA you have been sentenced to have the memory of your crime and all preparatory planning, to a maximum amount of six month, removed. In addition, given the serious nature of your actions an additional eighteen month erasure is added to the punishment. In summary Agent 200/alpha/813/mu you are sentenced to the deletion of two years of your memory, working backwards from this moment. You have no right of statement and no right of appeal.'

Frenziedly Maran thrashed his head from side to side in an abortive attempt to avoid Grainger's ministrations. The green light on Amelie's camera was flashing in an erratic manner, four flashes...a pause...three flashes...a pause. _A countdown_ realised Maran joyfully, _she's done it she can send me back. Oh, thank the Goddess! _ He felt Wakeford pressing the memory ripper to the side of his head and closed his eyes. The agony of memory removal and the swirling disorientation of the vortex jump hit him simultaneously


	7. Chapter 7

Johansson and Wakeford stared at each other is astonishment. 'What the fuck' shrieked Johansson turning on Wakeford, 'what did you do?'

Grainger was gaping in disbelief at the memory ripper in his hand, 'nothing, I did nothing. It was a standard two year memory wipe.'

Johansson shoved him violently and painfully into the edge of one of the consoles, 'look around you,' she screamed, 'he fucking disappeared, does that look like a standard memory wipe to you? Does it?'

Wakeford was shaking, they hadn't been partnered long but he had already learned that Johansson in a rage often ended with someone dead, 'I swear Ralijke, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary.'

Johansson surveyed her partner critically, she was inclined to believe him, apart from the fact he was clearly terrified enough to tell the truth she had been watching him closely as he carried out the memory wipe and had not seen anything but an efficient and clean wipe. Calming, she ran her hands through her turquoise hair in frustration, 'so where the hell did he go?'

Grainger shrugged, 'It's not that big a ship' he ventured, 'we could check it out before starting a wider search.'

Ralijke nodded, 'Yeah, could have been a short distance emergency jump, I suppose.' She considered for a second or two then came to a decision. 'Get to it' she ordered, 'I'll see if I can pick up his life signs in the city.'

Relieved, Grainger scurried from the flight deck to systematically search the ship, whilst Johansson focussed upon the local data being supplied by her wrist strap.

* * *

When she re-entered the ship half a nanon later, she found Grainger seated on the floor of the cargo deck elbows on his knees and head hanging down dispiritedly. Ralijke leant against the bulkhead and sighed.

'Nothing, eh?'

Wakeford looked up and shook his head. His eyes were wide with fear, 'no, there is no sign of him; I've swept the whole ship twice. He's gone. What do we tell the Agency?' he asked, 'we screwed up, what they will do to us?'

Johansson shrugged, 'posting to the omega system, possibly?' she suggested, 'ten years out on the ice spiral nebulae on the edge of the galaxy?' She chastised herself as Wakeford paled visibly, the kid was new to this game, indeed the Maran Bo assignment was his first field outing; she shouldn't tease. With a sigh she sat down next to him.

'The thing about the Agency,' she said, 'they tell us what to do, they give us the equipment to do it and all they care about is that the job is done.' Wakeford looked at her in confusion, Ralijke continued, they told us to wipe two years of Bo's memory and we did that. They gave us the memory ripper and we used it correctly. Anything else? Not our problem.'

A small flicker over hope appeared on Grainger's face, 'so what... we just don't tell them that he disappeared?'

'We tell them that our mission was completed successfully. We tell them that Maran Bo has had two years wiped from his memory as ordered and that it was a neat, clean wipe. That's all we tell them. If they ask us for more we say we don't know where Bo went after the wipe was concluded.'

'And that will satisfy them?'

'If you want to survive in this game you need to understand how to become a letter-of-the law Agent. Only give our masters the answers they want, don't elaborate, everything else is extraneous and irrelevant.'

Wakeford frowned, 'but...don't you want to know? Don't you care what happened to him or where he is?'

'No'

* * *

It took a while but, eventually, Johansson convinced Wakeford that, wherever Maran Bo had disappeared it was nothing to do with them and the two Time Agents left the flyer to return to the tavern they had been in earlier, still mildly bickering about what could possibly have happened to their victim and why they should care. Cautiously, Amelie re-booted her peripheral cameras and tech that she had shut down when Johansson and Wakeford had first dragged the semi-conscious carcase of Maran Bo into her scanner room. Within nanoseconds of their entry she had identified the two time agents and accessed the official charges and sentence that had been passed on her Captain; the last thing he needed right now was the Time Agents realising Amelie was there and shutting her down leaving her unable to help him, so she closed down everything except one camera and one audio feed. f She had been unprepared for the algorithm of rage that swept through her neural net pathways, her intelligence might be artificial and her experience of emotion second hand but she had seen how this long dead young man from the 20th century had set of a powder keg of emotions in the previously love 'em and leave 'em Bo. She had known exactly what she had to do and she also knew exactly what it would cost her.

Slowly, painfully, Amelie carried out a systems check on herself; she knew she was badly damaged. Apart from the power it had taken to calibrate and energise Maran's Vortex Manipulator for a 3,000 year vortex jump, she had simultaneously hid her actions from the Time Agency, from Ziggy, who, she was certain, would overload her circuits in an effort to stop her and from herself erasing her active programmes seconds after they were initiated; no way did she want Johansson and Wakeford, nor even Bo's partner Raja Rem to be able to rummage though her data banks to find out what she had done and attempt to undo it. The vortex jump had been taxing for her too as her computation were untested and she had to manipulate her calculations on the fly as well as surreptitiously stealing data from Ziggy to identify the safest point in Ianto's lifetime as the endpoint of Maran's vortex jump . But Amelie knew without doubt that what had caused her the greatest damage was initiating a direct link into Maran's consciousness in order to insert compressed information into his mind the split second after the memory wipe. The timing had been crucial, too soon and the information she had shared would be erased by the memory wipe, wait too long and she would miss her opportunity to save her Captain. She had not had much time and so the information had to be relevant. She had imprinted the knowledge of 20th century English and idioms into his speech centre and, in the last femtosecond remaining to her she ensured that the names Ianto Jones and Jack Harkness were inserted into his short term memory. She hoped that by making the latter a memory immediately after the memory wipe had occurred Maran would somehow recognise the names, if he encountered them, later.

She could feel parts of her system failing and shutting down, it felt most peculiar as parts of her programming disappeared. The images from her scanners seemed less sharp, Raja had burst into the control room yelling something that she was sure was an demand for information about Maran but all Amelie was picking up was the low buzz of white noise. Amelie could vaguely remember sending a call for help to Rem but judging by his well fucked look, his dishevelled state and the reek of sex he carried into the flight deck with him he had held off responding until he was sexually satiated. _Typical_, she thought. She could feel Raja trying to access her programming but she knew that anything he could do would not be enough, it was too late, her system was tipping towards a catastrophic cascade failure and nothing could stop that.

_Is this death?_, she wondered, _can I die or will my salvageable parts end up in another machine somewhere? Will I remember this? Will I remember him? _One by one her cameras were going dark and information pathways in the A.I elements of her hard drive were dissolving. Amelie sent a message pulse to the universe, k_eep him safe, let him find the love he needs and deserves. _Then with the last of her power she reviewed her image files of Maran, running them through what was remaining of her failing memory, her last recognisable thought was _Goodbye, my beautiful Captain._

And then Amelie...stopped.


	8. Chapter 8

**Cardiff November 2008**

'...he left without looking back and the skies produced the tears that I dare not. All that was left to me now was my love for him and for what he had done for me'

As the applause grew in enthusiasm and strength, Ianto Jones raised his eyes and surveyed the audience with gratitude. This was the first public reading of his recently published debut novel and the warmth of the approval surprised and thrilled him. The bookshop owner, Mr. Jenkins, moved to stand next to him and, after a minute or two, raised his hands to quell the applause. He turned to Ianto with a simpering smile

'I'm sure Mr Jones is now left in no doubt how much we appreciate his reading of his extraordinary work,' he fluted, gently ushering Ianto to a table piled with copies of his book, 'and now, if you would form an orderly queue our esteemed author will happily sign his book for you.'

The rest of the evening passed in euphoric blur of people queuing up to say nice things about his work and ask for dedications to be inscribed in the copy they had purchased. By 9.30 the evening had wound down and Ianto, having taken an effusive farewell of Owen Jenkins was venturing out into the cold, sleet of the November Cardiff streets. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his over coat and headed home towards his flat. _I wish Rhi had been there,_ he thought to himself as he made his was gingerly along the icy streets, _although I know that was too much to expect_; He had sent Rhiannon an invitation to his public reading but since his sister had not really spoken to him much since their father had died he had not really expected her to show up. She had never understood why Ianto refused to cooperate with the police investigation into their father's murder, especially as she was positive that he had witnessed the entire thing. She had yelled and railed and cursed at him, furious that he would do nothing to find the man who had murdered their father. It wasn't as if she had no idea what the bastard had been doing to him, Ianto reminded himself, she knew and she had said she was appalled and that she sympathised but because Idris had been a good father to her she was adamant that Ianto had a duty to get his murder caught and punished. In the end it was easier just to stop speaking to her, they still exchanged presents on birthdays and at Christmas but found it made their lives far less complicated if they simply avoided each other. Ianto gave a cross between a shiver and a shudder, _it was years ago_ he told himself _time for both of us to get over it and move on, forgive each other, maybe I could spend Christmas with her. I'd like to be more of an uncle to Mica and David. It's not like my saviour is ever going to come back._

As usual, the thought of the man who had saved his life give Ianto a warm glow. The man had given Ianto a huge legacy, not only had he released Ianto from a miserable life of sexual bondage his actions had inspired Ianto to find his creative voice. The concept of disinterested altruism, saving a stranger from a monster was the central theme of his debut novel and Ianto already had a whole series of plots and stories seething in his head. He was already halfway through writing his second novel and could see the whole saga stretching out before him like a clear night sky. He began working on the next chapter, writing it in his mind as he made his way through the deserted streets.

* * *

As Ianto approached his apartment complex he was blinded by a blazing white light and a loud thud. When the light had faded and Ianto's eyes had stopped streaming so that he was able to focus once more, he was able to see the semi-conscious body of a man lying on the path at his feet.

'Jeezus' Ianto ran towards the body, the man seemed to have dropped from a great height but Ianto could not work out from where. He lay half in the road, half on the pavement and a nasty gash on his forehead bore witness to where he had connected with the kerb stone. Gently Ianto tried to help the groaning man to his feet. The man managed to pull himself upright by the simple expedient of dragging himself up Ianto's body.

'C'mon' said Ianto wrapping a supportive arm around the injured man, 'my flat is just over there, we can get you cleaned up.' He noticed the man squinting through the thick trickle of blood that was obscuring his vision, fishing in his coat pocket he pulled out a clean handkerchief , wadding it up, pressed it into the stranger's hand, gently encouraging him to press it to his forehead.

'Esh-sh-ka,' whispered the man in a low voice, swaying dangerously on his feet.

With a small grunt Ianto pulled the man close so that he could take more of his weight. 'Let's get you inside and sitting down' he said, 'before you fall down and hurt yourself further.' Slipping slightly on the icy pavement the two men made their way slowly to the front entrance of Ianto's apartment block.

It took all of Ianto's strength and concentration to guide the injured man into his apartment block and to usher him into the lift. Once in the lift he propped the semi-conscious man into a corner whilst he fumbled for his keys. He staggered as the man lurched back into his arms, face millimetres from Ianto's own, murmuring what appeared to be complete gibberish, 'Esh-sh-ka, m'ya su-ni?' Unfocussed eyes skated over Ianto's face and a shaking hand was placed softly against his cheek, 'krieta te-nu?'. Ianto shook his head. 'I'm sorry' he said soothingly and softly, 'I don't understand you. I don't know what you are trying to say.' He braced himself as the man's eyes slid shut and he passed out completely.

* * *

Panting and trying hard to ignore the shooting pains in his lower back, Ianto lurched into his flat with the now unconscious stranger over his shoulder. Kicking his front door closed behind him, he stumbled into his living room and half dropped, half deposited his charge onto his sofa. Straightening up with a small groan, Ianto rolled the man onto his back, checked his airway and placed a cushion under his head and took a look at him properly for the first time. With a smothered sob Ianto fell to his knees and tenderly, unbelievingly stroked the face that he last saw looking up at him from his front garden, nine years ago, 'oh my god,' he whispered as he brushed the soft dark hair back from the tanned forehead which was marred by a bloody gash, 'it's you, it's really you.' Before he realised what he was doing he leant forward and placed a soft kiss on his saviour's mouth.

For a second the lips beneath his own were warm but unresponsive but then there was a slow return of pressure, a slight movement and a tentative swipe of tongue across his lower lip. Ianto smiled into the kiss as the man on the sofa shifted onto his side with a barely repressed grunt and snaked his arm around Ianto's neck to pull him in and deepen the kiss.

Ianto had never experienced anything like it – admittedly his sexual experienced was severely limited, thanks to his father but there had been a couple of patient men, Jonathan, Mathew, over the years who had invested time and care in their relationships with Ianto until the young man panicked and pushed them away; but this? This was incredible, it was new and familiar all at once, the weight of the stranger's tongue on his own felt exactly right. With a moan, Ianto's hands crept between them to cup the man's face, the sticky trail of blood that was marring his smooth skin brought him back to reality, he pulled back and smiled warmly, 'we need to get you cleaned up, then we need to talk.'

The man on the sofa smiled back, Ianto tried to ignore the swarm of butterflies that suddenly seemed to have materialised in his stomach, the man spoke, hesitantly, 'do...do I know you?'

'Do you think you do?' asked Ianto gently

The man frowned, causing more blood to flow, 'I don't know.' His breathing began to hitch and his eye rolled wildly. Ianto placed a calming hand on the man's chest.

'Doesn't matter' he said gently, 'relax and let me look after you. We will have lots of time to talk later'

With a small smile, the man closed his eyes, the tension bleeding from his body.

* * *

Ianto was seated on his sofa with the man's head in his lap, gently swabbing away the dried blood. Once cleaned the gash did not look too bad but Ianto carefully applied a series of steri-strips just to be on the safe side. Bright blue eyes were fastened on his face trustingly.

A shaking hand reached out, grasping Ianto's wrist and pulling his hand close enough to place a soft kiss in his palm, 'Esh-sh-ka'

'You said that when I helped you up in the street,' said Ianto, 'what language is it? What does it mean?'

' It means...thank you' the injured man said, he paused, 'did I say anything else?'

'Yeah, umm... you said "m'ya su-ni" and "krieta te-nu" they sound like questions.

'They are,' said the man, 'they mean "what is your name" and "Do I know you" It's galactic common.

Ianto looked at him in confusion, was this guy one of those weirdos who was fluent in Elvish or Kingon? 'Galactic common? Never heard if it, but you do you speak English don't you?' he said, then he laughed, 'of course you do – you had quite a long conversation with my father didn't you?' The man on the sofa looked confused and Ianto reminded himself to curb his interrogation – the man was probably concussed at the very least but, having waited and speculated for nearly nine years, there was one thing that he had to know straightaway. He clasped the man's hand tightly in his right hand and placed his left hand on his own chest, 'I am Ianto,' he said slowly and clearly, 'Ianto Jones. Who are you?'

'Ianto Jones?' the man looked as if he was having difficulty parsing the information.

'Yes' Ianto smiled reassuringly, 'I am Ianto, who are you?'

The man wonderingly put his finger tips to the side of his head, 'I have your name in my head' he said, then with lightning speed he was on his feet and aiming a gun at Ianto's face, 'who do you work for?' he snarled, when am I?' he looked around wildly, ''where is this, what have you done with Raja?'

Ianto backed away slowly, hands held high, 'Ok' he said, soothingly, 'you are confused, I get that but please sit down before you fall down. We can sort this out; some kind of memory loss is to be expected with a head wound like yours. I'm no threat to you, you don't remember me yet, obviously but I owe you a debt that I can never repay. The one thing you need know, the one thing you must believe is that, I am no threat to you; my obligation to you is such that I would die to keep you safe. So, please, sit down and tell me your name.'

The wounded man did not so much sit back down as collapse in a semi-controlled fashion, he put his gun down on the cushion beside him and placed his head in his hands, 'the last thing I remember' he choked out, 'was running protection for the royal family on Spesos Prime in 4048. Agency Year 5022.' He fumbled with the think leather wrist strap that Ianto had noted early, releasing the cover and squinting muzzily, then he frowned, 'this says that the Agency Year is 5024.' He gazed up at Ianto with a stricken look, 'I've lost two years of memories – I don't remember anything of the last two years. All I have is two names in my head and one of them is yours.'

'And the other?' enquired Ianto

'Must be mine – Jack Harkness'

'Jack Harkness? It suits you.'

'Captain Jack Harkness' the man corrected himself

'Captain' Ianto smiled, 'Captain of what?'

'It's my Time Agency rank.' Jack examined Ianto's face intently, 'You are so familiar to me. How do I know you?' he asked again, 'have we met?

'We have' Carefully Ianto sat down beside the distraught man, and taking his hand, told him how he had saved his life nine years earlier.


	9. Chapter 9

The man who was now Jack Harkness, rolled onto his back and tried to make sense of what was happening to him. The very last thing he remembered was protecting the Royal Family on Spesos Prime, his Time Agency directive had been to protect the reigning monarch whilst working to end the opposition. Things had worked well, as far as he could recall, although he remembered being very concerned about Raja – the enthusiasm he bought to their wet work was becoming extremely worrying. He knew he had been planning to speak to Rem when the mission was complete but then...everything was a blank until he had come round, cold, wet, confused and hurting and gazing into the concerned kind gaze of a beautiful young man.

And now he was here in...Cardiff, the boy had said. Jack had used his V.M to pinpoint his position and was shocked to find himself in the 21st century on Sol 3, a primitive planet right on the edges of the galaxy which did not even have the capability for interplanetary travel. What was even more shocking to him was the story that Ianto had told him; a cross between a romantic novel and murder thriller. An unhappy and abused boy sharing his pain with the world via a message in a bottle followed by the arrival of an unknown hero, who arrived in the nick of time to save the protagonist of the story from a sexually abusive father, an unnamed man who killed and slipped back into the oblivion from whence he had came. He was touched by the way Ianto had described how he had fallen in love with him as their eyes had locked for an all too brief moment; he was even more affected by the loyalty that the young man had shown by refusing to play any part in the investigation into his father's death. Jack couldn't remember when anyone had shown him that much fidelity. It was almost too much to think about.

However, assimilating to rapidly changing situations was what Jack had been trained to do, admittedly this was not the kind of scenario his instructors at the Time Agency had in mind when they tortured him physically and psychologically for eight weeks straight to test his limits. Jack smiled reminiscently, they had never found his limits – this would not break him. He stretched and his smile widened as he thought about the young man who had rescued him from the street. He had shown himself to be laudably unconcerned about the hints Jack had revealed about his origins. He had not even flinched when Jack had mentioned speaking galactic common, he had not pushed when Jack had let slip about being from the future. All he had done was recognise Jack's distress about his inability to place Ianto, pushing aside his own questions to tell Jack what he had done for him.

The story Ianto had shared with him had shaken him though. Ianto's theory that the message that he had placed into a bottle a few weeks before his sixteenth birthday in the 20th century had somehow been intercepted by Jack in the 51st had made him wonder about what he had been up to in his missing two years. Although, on reflection, the theory actually seemed plausible to Jack as he vaguely remembered stories of space/time rifts scattered throughout the universe, even in this dump, the dead-end of the galaxy a rift was not unlikely. Jack flipped the cover on his Vortex Manipulator and took a brief exploratory reading, his eyebrows climbing in surprise – there was indeed an rift and one of the largest one he had ever encountered. _Well, well, well_ he thought, _at least getting of this mud ball won't be too difficult, providing the Agency aren't still looking for me for whatever it was I did to piss them off_. Then he paused, thinking about Ianto Jones, brave, resilient, open minded and so very loyal since he had demolished his relationship with the one remaining member of his family to protect the man who had, in Ianto's words, saved his life by murdering his abuser – Jack realised with a small shock that he already could not countenance the idea of leaving the young man's side. Ianto's quiet dignity has he related his dark history of abuse and sexual enslavement had impressed Jack and revealed a strong protective streak that he had been unaware of in himself.

Jack was not often given to introspection, he preferred to live in the moment than waste time thinking about his past or speculating upon his future but he was suddenly aware of a seismic shift in how he viewed himself. Thinking about Ianto gave him a warm glow, the man was probably the most beautiful person Jack had ever seen but there was something more...a sadness and a vulnerability that made Jack swear he would make himself responsible for the young man's happiness for as long as he was allowed to. _Oh dear Goddess_, he whispered to himself, _I'm falling in love with him_.

Jack rolled off the sofa and wrapped himself in the thick duvet that Ianto had enveloped him in for warmth after removing his soaking wet clothes and towelling him dry. On silent feet he wandered around the flat, exploring delicately, like a cat in a new home. He picked up a framed photo that was tucked in the corner of a book case. It was supposedly a family snap but on closer inspection it looked more like two opposing teams in a long running dispute. An obviously younger Ianto Jones was wrapped possessively in the arms of a woman who held him close against her side in a fierce embrace, the father, Jack looked at the man carefully but his features triggered no spark in his memory, had his arm around a dark haired girl holding her in a similarly over protective grip. The two couples were, almost imperceptibly, leaning away from each other; the antagonism between the parents was palpable. Shaking his head, sadly, Jack tucked the photo back where he had found it.

Pulling the duvet closer around his shoulders, Jack cast an eye over the books on the shelves in front of him. There was a considerable collection of science fiction, he picked one at random and cast a glance at the opening sentence before sorting derisively and putting it back. He was about to turn away when a copy of Ianto's debut novel caught his eye. He recognised the title; the book was a galactic classic even in his time, he had read the first book in high school and studied the whole twenty-eight books of the series in more depth at university. The complexity of the themes in the books and the intricacies of plots and sub plots had made the book requisite reading across the civilised galaxy. Rumour had it that an intense civil war on a frontier planet had been brought to an end when the commanders of the opposing parties had discovered a shared admiration of the books and war had been abandoned for discussion of the major plotlines inherent in the fiction. As he stood there holding a pristine first edition of _"Altruistic Universe_" in his hands he noticed that something was terribly wrong, staring in disbelief at the book jacket, a wave of coldness swept his body and a searing pain shot though his head and he heard a soft female voice saying _'...unclear but something Ianto Jones does will impact hugely on the peace and wellbeing of our galaxy...some confusion about the name...'_ The pain became unbearable and his vision was blurring but Jack almost made it back to the couch before he passed out.

* * *

Sleep had likewise been avoiding Ianto Jones, after stripping off his damp clothes and settling Jack on the sofa with his softest and warmest duvet Ianto had made his way to his bedroom. Although he was exhausted from the success of his public reading and also from the emotional turmoil that the astonishing re-entry into his life of his saviour, the man he now knew was Captain Jack Harkness, he was just too wired to sleep.

Ianto rolled onto his back and clasped his hands behind his head. He had so many questions he wanted to ask Jack; what was galactic common, for a start and what did Jack mean he had been on Spesos Prime in the 41st century and where the hell _**was**_ Spesos Prime? Ianto considered the overwhelming evidence that suggested Jack was an alien, or at least was not fully human; he really needed to get Jack to give him some more information about himself. The problem was Jack had been getting so stressed about if he had met Ianto before and what that might mean; it seemed only kind to explain to him why Ianto was not a threat to him. It hadn't been easy telling his story to Jack, partly because the description of what his father had done to him had made Jack so furious that Ianto had been afraid he was going to hurt himself. When Jack had heard that Ianto had persistently refused to give any information to the police about his father's murder, he had pulled Ianto into a prolonged and passionate embrace which has resolved itself into an equally prolonged and passionate kiss.

When they broke apart, breathless, panting and smiling delightedly at each other, Jack had run his hands over Ianto's face. 'I wish I remembered' he murmured, 'I wish I could remember you as a boy, I wish I could remember what I did to make you...' he faltered, 'to make you...'

Ianto had smiled, 'to make me love you so much?'

Tears were sparkling in the blue eyes as Jack nodded. Ianto rested his forehead on the other man's, 'it's not just that you saved me,' he told him softly, 'it was more that I wished for you and you came. You came to help me when I needed you, you stood up for me; no one had ever done that for me before, not ever in my entire life. Besides...' it was Ianto's turn to hesitate and Jack gave him a small encouraging kiss, 'besides you are so beautiful, how could I not love you?'

Jack had slumped back against the cushions on the sofa and had attempted a licentious smirk which quickly morphed into a grimace of pain. Reluctantly, Ianto had eased the injured man down into a lying position and covered him with the duvet, tucking it in to ensure that he stayed warm. As Ianto had begun to move away, a large hand reached out and grasped his wrist, so Ianto stayed, perched on the arm of the sofa, gently running his hands though Jack's soft dishevelled hair drawing a small moan of pleasure from him. Ianto had watched as the other man's eyes slid shit and waited until his breathing slowed and settled before moving towards his own room.

Staring ahead into the darkness of his room Ianto thought about Captain Jack Harkness. A small voice at the back of his head was trying to tell him that he should be making a list of the things he want the Captain to clarify, that he should be worrying about the possibility that the naked man asleep on his couch was, in fact, an alien from a different time and planet, that he should be trying to think of ways to show the older man how much he could trust him. However, all Ianto could think about was how soft Jack's hair was, how the man's toned and muscled body had felt under his hands as he had helped him remove his sodden tunic, how much he wanted to feel that smooth skinned body pressed against his own and how absolutely brilliant it had been when Jack kissed him. Ianto moved his hand slowly down his own body caressing his abdomen with his fingertips; he closed his eye and pictured Jack Harkness' beautiful eyes smiling lovingly into his own. Ianto's cock twitched and he took himself in hand with a soft groan. He was just beginning to stroke himself with more vigour when the sound of a body hitting the floor reverberated through the small flat.

Ianto leapt from his bed and raced into his living room skidding to a horrified halt at the sight of Jack Harkness lying naked and unconscious on the floor bleeding profusely from his ears and nose.


	10. Chapter 10

'Jack!'

Ianto crossed his living room at record speed and knelt next to the unresponsive man. Jack was twitching and shaking whilst mumbling in a low tone and Ianto leant close to try to hear what he was saying.

'The name's wrong. The name's wrong.'

Heart pounding, Ianto tried to manoeuvre Jack onto the sofa but the position he was in made it impossible, so instead he pulled a couple of cushions from the couch, lifted Jack's head and placed the cushion under it before sprinting to the kitchen for yet another bowl of warm water and some swabs from his first aid kit.

Back in the living room Ianto lowered himself to the floor and, with some difficulty, pulled the limp body across his lap so that Jack's head rested comfortably on his shoulder. Pulling the duvet closely around them both, Ianto gently cleaned the blood away from Jack's ears and nose. Jack snuggled closer, nuzzling Ianto's neck and chest making a low rumbling purring noise has he did so.

Ianto pulled back slightly so that he could look into Jack's face, 'Jack?' he stroked the other man's face, Jack opened his eyes and blinked slowly, 'are you OK? What happened?'

'recall ricochet' stuttered Jack

'And that would be?'

'I told you I've lost two years of memories; I was poking around your flat...trying to remember you, trying get more of a feel for who you are,'

'Why?' interrupted Ianto, 'with everything that has happened this evening, why was knowing more about me so important?'

Jack closed his eyes, a single tear tracked down his cheek, 'because, although I don't remember meeting you before and I don't remember wanting to help you, or what I did; I do know that I have fallen in love with you in the space of four hours and I wanted to try to find out more about you to help me figure out, why. Something I picked up triggered a recall ricochet, a short and intense burst of memory from the blocked area of my hippocampus, it's painful and disorientating. Luckily it was only a small fragment of memory; in certain cases, recall ricochet can be fatal if not treated quickly. '

'What was it' asked Ianto curiously, 'what did you remember?'

'I can't tell you,' whispered Jack 'can't risk the timelines.'

'Huh'

Jack twisted in order to look into Ianto's face, 'I really can't,' he said, 'time is not completely fixed, Yan. Anything I tell you may have the severest repercussions for the future. Even if it's something really trivial'

'Like a name being wrong?'

'What?' Jack began to pull away from Ianto's embrace but Ianto refused to let him go.

'It's what you were saying when I found you. "The name's wrong, the name's wrong" over and over.'

'Did I say anything else?' asked Jack.

'Nope – just that'

Jack shook his head, 'I don't know what that means' he said and Ianto knew, for the first time that night, that Jack was lying to him.

* * *

For a long time the two men sat quietly. Jack tentatively rested his head back against Ianto's chest, making the same strange rumbling purr of satisfaction as Ianto drew him closer and wrapped the duvet tighter around them. Ianto chuckled,

'Jack! Are you purring?'

Jack blushed, 'great-great-great, I forget how many greats, about eight I think, grandma was half catkind. The genes got a bit diluted over the years but if I'm feeling particular content then they tend to kick in'

Ianto shook his head in wonder, 'Catkind?'

'Mmm, they were a race of humanoid felines that originated on the planet New Savannah but they eventually spread across the New Earth Empire. They were amazing nurses and doctors. I was born on a colony world and our local medical centre was run by a Catkind clowder– they had been there for well over a century, that where my great-great times eight grandfather met granny.'

Ianto rubbed his cheek against Jack's soft hair, 'god, that's amazing. This place must seem so primitive to you compared to the things you have seen.' Then he paused, 'wait, I thought you couldn't tell me anything about the future? Timelines you said'

'I can't share the small stuff, 'murmured Jack, 'this is my past, not your future.'

Ianto frowned, 'I'm not sure that make sense' he said

'Temporal physics'

'That's not an explanation' said Ianto, severely

'Trust me, I'm a Time Agent?' said Jack, hopefully

Ianto released a quiet laugh, 'so you can tell me the big stuff? Do we have flying cars? Personal jet packs?'

Jack licked Ianto's neck making him shudder, 'the future is just different stuff, more advanced tech, better things. People, though are pretty much the same, they still want to find someone to love them, they still want somewhere warm and secure to live, they love their kids, they want to earn enough money to feed their family. Some are nice, some are nasty – just like the people who live in Cardiff today.'

'Yeah?' Ianto captured Jack's earlobe between his teeth, 'that actually sounds quite hopeful'

'I guess.' Jack's speech was starting to slur as slumber crept up on him. Ianto wrapped his arms around the sleepy man and began softly hum the lullaby that his nain used to sing to him when he was very young. It had always made him feel safe and loved, he hoped it would do the same for Jack

* * *

After twenty minutes or so Ianto stirred, drawing a disgruntled snort from a sleepy Jack.

'Sorry,' said Ianto apologetically, 'but I can't feel my arse and I have a spectacular cramp in both my legs,' he ran his hand down Jacks arms, 'and you are freezing.'

Jack shivered, 'I'm crashing' he said, 'my adrenaline levels are falling. I need to sleep' He wriggled off Ianto's lap and tried to disentangle himself from the duvet in order to stand up.

With some difficulty, Ianto scrambled to his feet and reached out a hand to help the wounded and uncoordinated time traveller. The duvet seemed to have developed a life of its own and persisted in wrapping itself around and under the feet of the two men making them slip and slide on the polished wooden floor. Eventually, breathless and laughing, they stood face to face. Suddenly sobering, Ianto lifted both hands and ran the pads of his thumbs over the gentle curve of Jack's clavicles, letting his hands drift over his shoulders and ghost softly down Jack's arms, smiling to himself as he felt the goose bumps raise up on the other man's skin.

'Yan' the word was little more than an exhalation

Ianto clasped Jack's hand, 'will you let me take you to bed?' he murmured. Jack gave a single nod and placed a tender kiss on Ianto's forehead. 'You will have to be patient with me,' continued Ianto, 'I haven't really been with a man since...since...'

Jack's kisses became sweeter as he realised what Ianto was trying to say. 'It's OK Ianto' he whispered, 'let's go to bed and we'll hold each other, we'll touch each other and we'll do what feels right and only what feels right. Besides...' he gave a small rueful laugh, 'it's been a hell of a night, I'm not sure that I'm up to anything much more strenuous than that anyway.'

With a shy smile Ianto pulled Jack towards the bedroom but, after a few steps, Jack stopped short, 'Ianto,' he asked with a worried expression on his handsome feature, 'can you usually feel your arse?'

Ianto chuckled, 'no Jack, it's just a figure of speech.'

'Oh thank the goddess!'

The laughter of the two men drifted around the flat as Ianto pulled his new lover into the bedroom and shut the door behind them.


	11. Chapter 11

**Cardiff 2010**

In the middle of a cool autumnal night Jack Harkness was reviewing the life he was living, had been living for the last two years. Waking from a confused and already forgotten nightmare he had tip-toed through to the kitchen to pour himself a coffee from the thermos flask that his partner prepared before they went to bed every night. Jack wasn't the only one whose sleep was disrupted by unhappy memories and Ianto always insisted that a warm drink would help drive night terrors away; after a couple of unexplained mishaps, one of which had resulted in the expensive and complete re-modelling of the kitchen, Jack was forbidden from even approaching the coffee maker so the thermos was a good compromise. Jack smiled; he would never have believed he would have settled so quickly and happily into domesticity. It had only taken a couple of hours one rainy Sunday afternoon for Jack to hack into the student records of M.I.T to award himself a Masters degree in astrophysics and a Doctorate in cosmology. A month after that Jack was appointed as a senior lecturer at Cardiff University. He had been surprised at how much he enjoyed the work, he had discovered that he was a good teacher and had an open door policy which made him popular with his students. Jack felt a warm frisson of contentment, he had a job he enjoyed and was good at, a pleasant place to live and, most importantly, Ianto, his beautiful, his loving, his loveable Ianto

Taking a sip from his coffee mug, Harkness leaned against the frame of the door watching his lover sleep. By mutual agreement, they always slept with the curtains pulled back and silver light from the full moon was turning Ianto into a pearlescent image of masculine beauty, so beautiful Jack had a lump in his throat. The words he whispered into the silent room seemed drawn from his mind without any conscious effort.

'I hope, one day, you will see yourself for the amazing man that you are, I hope whoever you choose to love will be worthy of you, I hope that when you find love you keep it for as long as you live, I hope your life changes enough to give you all the wonderful things you deserve.'

Ianto stirred in his sleep, reaching out for Jack, unwillingly dragging his eyes open to rest on the dark form of his partner resting against the door frame, 'Jack? You Ok?'

Jack gave a sniff, wiped his nose with the back of his hand and settled himself on the bed next to Ianto, 'yeah, wishing on the full moon'

'Yeah?' Ianto was already half way back inside sleep

'Yeah' said Jack softly, 'It's a Boeshane superstition, wish for good things on the night of a full moon for the one you love.'

'I love you too' yawned Ianto, curling into Jack's side.

Jack stroked Ianto's skin absent mindedly, his attention caught by the dark smear of blood that decorated the back of his hand. He frowned; the nosebleeds and the crippling migraines were coming with increasing frequency along with brief flashes of memory from his missing two years, mainly odd phrases and scraps of conversations. He had been using 51st century biofeedback techniques to try to control the effects of the recall ricochet but things were getting worse. So far, he had managed to hide these episodes from Ianto who was immersed in the final changes to his soon to be published second novel. Jack sighed and reluctantly slid his hand from Ianto's warm soft skin to caress the wrist strap that he never removed from his person. He knew what he had to do and he was pretty sure that Ianto would not be happy about it.

Ianto snuggled closer to him his nose buried in Jack's groin, his warm breath making Jack squirm as his cock began to wake up and take an interest in what was going on. Sleepy blue eyes looked up at him and with a wicked smile Ianto sucked the very tip of his erection into his mouth. Jack gasped, 'Yan!'

Ianto laughed causing delicious vibrations around Jack's straining cock, 'if you are gonna wave that thing about, ' he chuckled, ' you mustn't be surprised if I play with it.'

Jack slid down to lie under the covers and insinuated a hand between their bodies to cup his lover's balls making him groan. He pulled Ianto into a passionate kiss and then, just as he felt the young man melt into the kiss, he slid and hopeful exploratory finger inside him gently stroking his prostate. Ianto sighed into the kiss and spread his legs wider to give Jack access. As their passion mounted, Jack managed to push all thoughts of his recall ricochet problem from his mind.

* * *

**Two weeks later**

Ianto staggered through the front door burdened down with shopping, 'I swear' he panted, 'I cannot understand why we need so much food. I mean there's only the two us and...' he voice died away as he took in what Jack was doing.

Seated at the breakfast bar, in a pool of bright light from Ianto's desk lamp, Jack was working on his Vortex Manipulator with some watchmakers tools that he had acquired from somewhere. He had looked up, absently, at Ianto's grumpy entrance and then a look of sheer panic and trepidation crossed his face.

'Jack?' Ianto carefully put the shopping on one of the worktops and removed his coat, 'what are you doing?'

'I'm...er...I'm just doing some routine maintenance on my wrist strap' stammered Jack.

Ianto began to automatically put his purchases away, moving deliberately and circumspectly around Jack, who twisted to watch him. 'This would be the wrist strap that jumps you through time and space?' he asked calmly, 'the one you told me you could not use because it would put the Time Agency on your track. You told me that unauthorised use of a...what was it...a vortex manipulator would show up on their monitoring systems and they would be able to hunt you down.'

Jack interrupted, ' yeah but...for a while now I've been working to disable the tracking programme and...'

For the first time since he had entered their flat Ianto looked Jack in the face, 'you've been working on this for a while?' he said unbelievingly

'yeah, but I was gonna tell you' interjected Jack.

Ianto's eyes were shining with unshed tears, 'when?' he demanded, 'were you going to say goodbye or were you just going to leave me the traditional "it's not you, it's me" note?' He sniffed and turned his head away, angry to think he was being so weak. 'I thought we were Ok, more than OK actually, I thought... well, never mind what I thought. Has living with me become so unbearable that you have to leave the planet, the century to get away from me?'

'What? NO!' Jack threw himself across the kitchen to pull the distressed man into his arms, 'no, no, no,' he babbled running desperate fingers over Ianto's face.

'Then why?' Asked Ianto, desperately, 'why are you secretly working to arrange things so that you can leave me whenever the mood takes you?'

Jack took Ianto by the hand and led him towards the sofa, scooping up his Vortex Manipulator as he did so; once seated he placed the V.M on Ianto's thigh and took Ianto's hand in both of his own, holding him tightly.

'You remember the night I arrived here?' began Jack seriously, Ianto nodded, 'You remember when I collapsed because of a recall ricochet?'

'Yeah, it frightened me to death, you told me it was cause by your wiped memories re-establishing in your mind. You collapsed, it was terrifying. When you recovered you told me that if the memories were large enough the ricochet could kill you.'

Jack lifted Ianto's hand and rubbed it against his cheek, 'I've been getting fragments of memory back,' he admitted, ignoring Ianto's exclamation of distress. 'some bits of conversation, the name Amelie crops up a lot, I've had a couple of nightmare about the killing of your father too...'

'But,' interrupted Ianto, the first recall ricochet was so bad you were unconscious – how can this be happening to you without me noticing? Why sort of blind bastard does that make me, if I don't even notice that the man I live with, the man I love, is suffering '

'I've been using some advanced biofeedback techniques to combat the worst of the symptoms,' said Jack, ' and you did notice, you held me through the nightmares and you helped me through the migraines,' he smiled,' you looked after me when they were unbearable, I couldn't have managed without you.'

Ianto leaned in and kissed him gently, 'Oh Cariad,' he murmured.

Jack smiled against his lovers lips and ran his tongue along his lower lip before drawing back and looking into his face, 'the thing is, _Beliyarat_,' he said seriously, 'the migraines are getting worse and I've started having nosebleeds as the memories get bigger and stronger. The next big recall ricochet may kill me, or at best result in massive brain trauma.'

'Oh Jack,' Ianto was horrified, 'what can we do? There must be something we can do. I won't let you die!'

'Which is why I have been working on this,' Jack released Ianto's hand and lifted the Vortex Manipulator. 'I'd succeeded moments before you came in. I was going to talk to you about all this tonight I swear – there was no point worrying you unnecessarily, no point bringing it up before I was certain that there was a solution.'

Apparently at random Ianto suddenly said, 'what was that you just called me?'

Jack blinked at the unexpected change of topic, '_Beliyarat_? It's a term of endearment from Boeshane. It means...' he tailed off and blushed, then raised his eyes to fix upon Ianto's, 'it means treasured and adored one. It's traditionally used between bonded life partners'

'So, you think of me as your bonded life partner?' persisted Ianto

'Yes, I do' said Jack softly. Abruptly Ianto smacked him round the head, 'hey' protested Jack

'You twpsyn! If you view me as your unofficial but bonded life partner then we are in this together, you should have been honest with me from the beginning, I could have helped...somehow'

Jack went weak with relief, they were OK 'I am a twpsyn' he said, 'but I'm your twpsyn and will be until I die. You are mine and I am yours and that's all there is to it.'

Yes you are' said Ianto softly, 'so, will you forgive me for doubting you?'

'If you forgive me for not trusting you with my problems' Jack ran an affectionate finger down Ianto's cheek, 'I'm not used to having someone to confide in, no-one has ever loved me the way you do.'

Ianto grinned and poked the wrist strap with his finger, 'so why the urgency to disabled the tracking function on this thing then?'

Jack flipped open the cover; 'watch carefully' he said to Ianto, 'I have programmed this to take me to any admitting emergency medical facility that is registered to treat a category epsilon recall ricochet. Now I've disabled the tracking function, I'm off the Time Agencies radar so using it is safer than it was. If the worst happens I need to you press this button, here.' He took Ianto's finger and rested it lightly on a recessed segment of the strap. 'It will jump me to a care facility that will be able to treat me, then I can be back with you before you know it.'

'And if I'm not with you?' asked Ianto worriedly, running his finger of the emergency button Jack had shown him trying to fix the feel and position of it on the wrist strap in his memory.

'You'll just have to keep me by your side at all times,' smirked Jack

'Hmm' mused Ianto, 'do you think that might be easier if I was officially and legally your Beliyart?'

'Ianto Jones! Are you asking me to marry you?'

'Do you know, I think I am' grinned Ianto, '

Jack dragged Ianto into his arms and kissed him with all the love and hunger that he had in his soul. He prolonged the kiss almost to the point of asphyxiation. Eventually the two men had to separate although there was barely a centimetre between their lips even once they had parted; the smile that painted Jack's lips imprinted itself on Ianto's, so close were they.

'Jack Harkness! Is that a yes?'

'Do you know I think it is'

TBC...


	12. Chapter 12

**Six weeks later**

Jack slumped down on the sofa and took a long swig from his glass of wine. He rolled his head to the left and gave a slow tired smile at Ianto who was slumped in an equally shattered state next to him.

'Who would have thought that arranging a wedding would be so utterly exhausting?' he said

Ianto laughed, 'only someone like you who had never seen a wedding arranged before. When Rhiannon married Johnny, it was like this, only about a million times worse. At least we don't have to worry about seating plans, or bridesmaids or party favours or shit like that.'

Jack reached over and took Ianto's hand, 'do you wish we did? Have to worry about all that shit. Did you dream of a big wedding?'

Ianto gave a bitter laugh, 'I never imagined I would get married, Jack. I thought I would spend my entire life being fucked by my father until he died and then I thought I would be alone until I couldn't bear it any longer and killed myself.'

Gently, Jack took Ianto's wine glass and set it down on the table next to his own before pulling his lover into his arms. 'Oh, Ianto, I'm so sorry. I should have remembered, you put all that in your message didn't you?'

Ianto frowned, 'message?'

'The message in the bottle' said Jack

Ianto pulled back slightly to sate at his lover, 'You remember that?'

'It's...it's w-w-why I c-c-came to f-f-find you' Jack's eyes rolled back in his head and he began to convulse in Ianto's arms.

'JACK' cried Ianto tears streaming down his face as he tried to hold his lover securely in his embrace. Mercifully the fit was of short duration and it was only seconds before Jack relaxed limp and unresponsive.

To Ianto it felt like hours that he sat cradling his unconscious lover in his arms, although it was really only a matter of minutes before Jack opened his eyes and gave a weak smile. 'Hello _Beliyarat_,' he said, feebly.

'Oh, Cariad,' Ianto stroked Jack's hair tenderly, 'how much longer can this go on; how long before this kills you?'

'It's worth it to remember more about you, more about us' murmured Jack nuzzling against Ianto's neck and purring quietly.

'No' said Ianto firmly, 'nothing is worth endangering you. Can't you use your wrist strap to jump forward in time to get treatment?'

Jack struggled out of Ianto's hold and looked at him incredulously, 'Yan, we get married in two days. If I go now I can't promise that I would make it back in time.' He held up his wrist, 'these things are not as accurate as one would hope. It was why the time agency always jumped us to our assignments a good six months before we were supposed to act, it was partly to give us time to assimilate and blend in but also to ensure we were where we should be at the right moment in time. I won't leave you until we are legally bonded, I won't leave you in any doubt that I will come back to you,' Jack slid to the floor and knelt between Ianto's legs, 'I love you, Ianto Jones and I can't wait to claim you as my _Beliyarat_. Then, I promise, I'll get this problem sorted and then we can travel together. I can't wait to show you what's out there'

Ianto grew wide-eyed, 'we can both use that thing?'

'Jack smiled, 'yeah, was gonna keep it as a surprise for after the wedding but...yeah, the places I'm gonna take you, Ianto Jones.'

He leant forward to plunder his lover's mouth with his tongue making Ianto groan, so lost in the sensation was the young man that he almost missed Jack's clever fingers insinuating themselves inside his jeans and stroking him to an almost instant hardness.

'Jack' he protested.

'What?' Jack looked up, innocently, from under his lashes, 'watching you try on all those suits and not being able to touch that glorious arse once. I know you wore those tight black boxers just to drive me wild.' He cupped Ianto's balls through said tight black boxers and grinned as Ianto slumped back giving Jack more access. to his most intimate areas. Jack grinned and pulled off his own tee-shirt before unfastening Ianto's shirt and exposing his chest. 'I watched you all day,' he murmured,' I was so hard, it seemed unfair that I wasn't allowed to just fuck you in the changing you tried on that Paul Smith suit I nearly came in my pants.' He carefully pulled Ianto's jeans and boxers down, allowing his partner's erection to bounce free. Jack glanced at Ianto's face, his eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted and his breathing was erratic – he looked beautiful. Jack continued his slow and gentle administrations to Ianto's penis, pausing only to fumble at his own flies and pull his own pulsating penis out.

'I wasn't the only one watching you, you know' whispered Jack and he licked a stripe from the root of Ianto's cock to his belly button, 'that guy in the Vivienne Westwood shop was virtually fucking you with his eyes.' He paused to blow gently on the moistened skin, making Ianto shiver and his cock ooze pre-cum, Jack continued, 'I bet we could have got him to agree to a threesome. What do you think? Standing in the changing room with my cock up your gorgeous arse and that fabulous youth's pretty mouth sucking hard on your cock?'

'Jack, please' Ianto gave a tiny thrust of his hips, desperate to come.

Jack judged that not only was Ianto more than ready to pop, he was suitably distracted from Jack's most recent recall ricochet. With a low sexy laugh, Jack slithered up Ianto's body so that every inch of his skin was in contact with his lover's. 'Think about that' he whispered, as he slyly slid a finger into Ianto's puckered hole, probing for his prostate, whilst squeezing Ianto's hot erection, 'think about those sensations, and then just when you are about to come...' Jack pressed their naked torso's close, making sure that their nipples brushed firmly against each other. The additional stimulation broke Ianto's control and with a loud scream he came hot and hard between them and collapsed sobbing and laughing against Jack's shoulder.

'I love you, _Beliyarat'_

'Love you too, Cariad'

* * *

**Two days later**

Rhiannon was hurrying to through the wet streets desperately trying to shield her new hairstyle from driving rain. She stood impatiently at the kerb, waiting to cross the road, the traffic seemed unending; a taxi drove too close to a large puddle and sprayed Rhiannon soaking her legs and filling her shoes with dirty rain water. Furiously Rhiannon raised her head to shriek obscenities after the careless driver but the words died on her lips. Running down the steps of Cardiff City Hall, hand in hand with the most gorgeous man she had ever seen, was her brother. Five or six people were gathered at the bottom of the steps and threw edible confetti over the pair. Moving like an automaton, Rhiannon crossed the road and moved closer to the laughing group.

'You, guys!' the gorgeous man was laughing at the confetti throwing group, whilst keeping a tight grasp of Ianto's hand.

'Like we'd let you get married without the support of your friends, Jack,' a dark haired woman with a gap in her teeth exclaimed, before dragging Jack into a hug and, what was in Rhiannon's opinion, an inappropriately long kiss. Rhiannon smiled to herself as she noticed that Jack never once let go of Ianto's hand.

A pretty Japanese woman was busily taking photographs and managed to insert herself between Jack and the gap toothed predator. 'C'mon Jack,' she said in a soft voice, 'give him a kiss'

'Oh no...' protested Ianto softly but Jack had pulled him into a slow prolonged kiss.

Rhiannon couldn't believe her eyes, her shy and reserved brother wasn't only married to another man no less but he was indulging in one of the most public displays of affection ever witnessed. Almost unwillingly she stepped forward. 'Ianto?'

Ianto turned in the circle of his husband's arms, 'Rhi?' he twisted to look at Jack, 'did you...?'

'No, Beliyarat'

Rhiannon drew herself up to her full height and stuck out her hand to an astonished Jack, 'Rhiannon Davies,' she said, 'and you are?'

Jack took her hand in his own and placed a polite kiss on the back of it, 'Jack Harkness-Jones,' he said, and I'm delighted to discover that I have such a gorgeous sister-in-law.'

Ianto nudged him with his shoulder, 'Jack, behave.'

'What? I'm just saying hello.'

'Don't you talk to him about behaving,' snapped Rhiannon, 'when were you going to tell me?'

'Tell you what?' returned Ianto, 'tell you that I finally find someone who loves me just because I'm me? That Jack and I have been together for over two years? That I'm gay? Well, that last one can't be much of a surprise, right? You knew what Tad was doing to me. The amazing thing is that I grew up at all. I love Jack and he loves me and that's all I care about, so you can keep your judgemental bigotry to yourself'

Rhiannon stepped closer and took hold of Ianto's free hand, 'I'm not judging you, Yan, I'm thrilled for you. I've been thinking for a while that maybe we should both grow up and try to put the past behind us. I wanted to get in touch when your book came out – I was at the reading, you know. I came late and left early, sat at the back so you wouldn't see me. You were brilliant, I'm so proud of you. I'm delighted you have found someone that loves you. I can't wait to introduce David and Mica to their new uncle.'

Ianto's eyes were bright with tears and even Jack looked a little misty as the siblings hugged and then reached out and pulled him into their embrace. Even the rain stopped as if to make the day even more perfect.

Across the road from the happy, celebratory group a disregarded figure stood beneath the trees in Gorsedd Gardens. Ralijke Johansson pushed her wet turquoise hair back from her face and allowed a rare smile to settle on her face, 'Maran Bo' she said with satisfaction, 'gotcha.'


	13. Chapter 13

Ralijke Johansson watched as the wedding party dispersed in the direction of a local pub and toyed with the idea of following them but reconsidered. It had taken 15 years of her timeline to track Maran Bo, or Jack Harkness as he seemed to be calling himself on this planet and she was damned if she was going to ruin things by acting precipitately. She drew back into the shadow of a tree as Jack's partner turned and glanced in her direction. His stormy blue eyes gazed straight into her own for a long second until Jack tugged impatiently on his hand. The young man gave Johansson an incandescent smile of pure happiness before he let himself be led away.

Johansson slumped against the tree she had been leaning on; despite her confident words to her partner at the time, her Time Agency Masters had been furious that she had lost Bo after the memory wipe. They had rescinded her partnership with Grainger Wakeford and tried to demote her. Storming out of her disciplinary hearing, filled with rage, Johansson illicitly transferred several million credits into her black accounts and used her vortex manipulator to get her the hell away from the morons running the service, leaving Grainger to extricate himself from the mess as best he could. She heard later that, although the disciplinary hearing had exonerated him on the ground of his inexperience, he had been killed on a mission not long after she had disappeared; it had given her a grim sense of schadenfreude. She knew it was no accident; it was the fate she had expected for herself, it was why she had run.

After disabling the tracking element of her vortex manipulator, and spending a year of her own timeline jumping around the universe in an effort to obliterate her tracks, she had managed to sneak back to Sirius 21 in time to make an offer to Bo's partner for his dysfunctional ship. She had nursed the wrecked ship to an isolated planet and spent nearly 9 months cannibalising the ship's computer – the A.I unit was completely fried but the backup hard drives and the CCTV records were more or less intact. Rakijke had lost count of the hours she had spent watching and re-watching the retrieved footage, trying to piece together what had made Bo risk Time Agency wrath by jumping without authorisation. She was just about to give up when she found a translated document deep in the back up memory of the computer,

_To whoever finds this letter,_

_My name is Ianto Jones. I'm fifteen years old, my mam is dead, I have an older sister named Rhiannon who has a head full of boys and shoes and my dad fucks me every night..._

She read the letter from beginning to end, three times and broad smile spreading across her face as she manipulated the coordinates for 20th century earth into her wrist strap. She had no idea until she arrived in Aberystwyth in 1974 that the planet Bo had apparently jumped to would be so primitive. Finding Maran Bo had become pretty much an obsession over the intervening years, indeed her slide into monomania had been so gradual she had not even noticed it; Ralijke had convinced herself that the one person to blame for the ignominious end to her career was Maran Bo. She had spent a good 15years of hopping through time and exploring this godsforsaken mud ball and was beginning to despair until she accidentally ran across her quarry in the street

She hugged herself with joy, her luck was changing, at last. She had his name now, and it would be a matter of minutes to hack into the computer system of the city to find out where he was living. She knew one thing for certainly though – Jack Harkness–Jones, as he was calling himself now, was going to pay a heavy price. Opening her umbrella, she turned to make her way back to the place she was staying. She needed to do some planning; payback was imminent now that things were finally going her way.

* * *

**Cardiff - six weeks later**

'No, no, I insist'

'Jack put me down. I refuse to be the girl. Put me down'

'No. it's tradition' with some difficulty the door to the apartment was kicked open and Jack Harkness Jones staggered into the room with a laughing Ianto in his arms. 'Bloody hell, it's cold in here. We should have got Rhiannon to come round and put the heating on'

Far from continuing his demands to be put down, Ianto, instead, snuggled closer to his husband's chest, 'well, I'm nice and cosy here, thanks' but jack set him on his feet with a small grunt.

'Can you get weather lag as well as jet lag?' he asked, pulling Ianto closer and wrapping them both in the World War Two greatcoat they had found in vintage market in Sydney. Jack had moaned constantly that the Australian summer was too hot to allow him to wear the coat which he had fallen in love with from the first moment that Ianto had pointed it out to him. However, returning to a cold and windy Cardiff meant the greatcoat was finally coming into its own. Ianto rested his head of his husband's shoulder and together they danced slowly on the spot to the rhythm of Jack's purring.

'I can't believe that this time two days ago we were sunning ourselves on Bondi beach' said Ianto

'Mmm, Australian honeymoon was an inspired idea' agreed Jack yawning, 'I wish you had let me use the V.M though – we could have stayed longer and been back earlier.'

'Didn't you tell me that travel by Vortex Manipulator was always sick making and unpleasant for novices?' asked Ianto 'Is that how you wanted me on the first night of our honeymoon?'

'I would have worked hard to take you mind off any nasty side effects,' murmured Jack, suggestively.

'Hmm,' Ianto sounded unconvinced as he snuggled closer, 'you wanna go to bed or do you want something to eat?'

Jack brightened, 'Bed?'

Ianto rolled his eyes, 'to sleep, Jack not for sex.'

Jack chuckled, 'we could go to bed with a sandwich and do both.'

Ianto kissed Jack on his chin, 'again? Can I remind you that we did it four times on the way back, not counting that hand job I gave you once everyone else on the plane was asleep.'

'Oh yeah' Jack's grin was filthily reminiscent.

Reluctantly Ianto pulled himself out of his husband's arms. You go down to the shop, get some milk and I'll get the coffee started.'

'OK,' said Jack agreeably, 'what would you say to bacon butties too?'

'Dunno, would you want to eat them in bed?'

'Probably.'

Ianto rolled his eyes, 'would you want to be naked?'

Jack huffed, 'well, obviously'

'So there is every likelihood that you will drip butter and brown sauce all over your naked chest.'

'Let me ask you a question,' countered Jack, 'if I did have that type of condiment based mishap, would you be likely to...maybe...lick me clean.'

Ianto looked serious, 'you are my husband, your appearance reflects on me, so yeah I am very likely to that.'

'Shiny'

* * *

Ianto watched lovingly as Jack headed out of the apartment. God he loved that man. Filled with a sudden excess of affection Ianto hurried to the window to watch his husband make his way down the street. Once Jack had turned the corner, Ianto's attention was caught by another passer-by, a knitted hat on her head but with long strands of brght blue hair floating in the strong Cardiff wind. _Blimey,_ he thought to himself, _that girl has amazing hair! _ With a happy smile Ianto moved away from the window to head to the kitchen and make coffee.

He was just pouring two mugs of coffee when he heard the front door of the flat open, Grinning he walked out into the living area, when the sight that met his had the mugs slipping from his hands to smash of the floor. Jack was standing very still, a carrier bag of shopping held in his hands and the vicious blade of the turquoise haired woman that Ianto had spotted on the street pressing into his neck.

Jack gave a strained grin, 'hi honey, I'm home.'


	14. Chapter 14

'Hi Honey, I'm home'

Ianto surveyed the scene before him; an antsy and confused looking Jack was standing pale and very, very still; the thin trickle of blood from his nose complementing the red oozing from across his throat where the blade rested upon his skin.

'Jack?' Ianto sounded preternaturally calm, 'Want to introduce me to your friend?'

Over Jack's shoulder, Johansson surveyed Ianto contemptuously. She still could not believe her luck. She had watching Harkness' address since she had serendipitously found him and his lover in the city on the day of their joining ceremony. She had walked away at the time, wishing to savour her triumph then had later wished she had acted immediately because when she had tried to find the two men the next day; they had disappeared from the city. She was familiar with the concept of the "honeymoon" that was traditional on this planet and assumed that's where they had gone but she had not expected them to be away for so long. Her sources told her that the average length of a honeymoon was two weeks but Harkness and his partner had been gone for a month and a half to Ralijke's intense annoyance. She had been staking out their apartment for the last six weeks and had rejoiced when Harkness left the building only thirty minutes or so after he and his husband had returned.

* * *

**20 minutes earlier**

Pulling her knitted hat further down over her brow and cursing the awful weather of Cardiff Ralijke Johansson skipped across the street and moved to stand in shadows at the corner of the building to await her quarry's return.

Jack was walking home in a state of bliss, since he had landed on this planet, since he had Ianto in his arms and at his side, he had experienced happiness such as he had never known before. The handles of the plastic carrier bag cut into his fingers, except where they rested against the weight of his wedding ring and even that mild discomfort made him smile. Contentment made him careless as Johansson stepped from the shadows, grabbed hold of his arm and swung him up against the wall of the building.

'Hello Maran,' she smirked, running a finger over the fabric of Jack's coat, 'remember me?' The intense image of being pressed again the metal skin of his flier as this turquoise haired woman ran her finger seductively over his chest, burst into Jack's mind with the clarity of a hi-def vid recording and he moaned in agony. The first shock of the recall ricochet made Jack's fingers spasm around the handle of the bag he was holding, locking it into his grip and he began to shake making the bag knock heavily against their legs. Memories began to force themselves into his head at such speed it felt as if his skull would shatter into a million pieces.

_Laughing with Raja as they ran through the royal palace on Spesos Prime both of them stumbling under the ache and weight of huge erections, then being pulled into a convenient bedroom to be sucked to the edge of oblivion./protesting in horror as Rem carelessly slit the throat of a palace guard; 'Rem, he's no more than a boy' and Rem laughing, 'lighten up, Bo. He's no-one. It's fun.'/enjoying some downtime in the Vegas system, sharing two beautiful boys with Rem – filling and being filled, spilling into a warm tentacle lined cavity./ sitting on the beach at the Sirius 21 spaceport, staring out to sea, as a bottle comes from nowhere to land at his feet./ gazing, entranced at the holographic image of a beautiful young man named Ianto Jones. / Being warned by Amelie, the A.I unit of his ship 'Once I have locked on you in the past, if at any time I think my protocols are in danger of violation I will snatch you back with no warning . You can't bring the boy back with you; am I clear?'/Feeling his blade slide into the chest of Ianto's abusive father and realising, with joy, that the boy's torture was over./hearing a soft welsh voice whispering, 'Diolch yn fawr_.'

The pain was unendurable, it stole his voice. Jack's eyes began to roll back into his head and his knees began to buckle. He was vaguely aware that his assailant was emptying the contents of a syringe into the side of his neck.

'Oh no, you don't,' Ralijke slapped him, hard across the face, 'you don't get to collapse on me.' Tossing the empty hypodermic aside, she pulled a serrated edged knife from a holster on her belt and rested it against the soft skin of Jack's throat, 'why don't you tale me upstairs and introduce me to you husband?'

Whatever it was Johansson had injected him with was dulling the agony of the ricochet but his brain still felt as if it was too big for his skull and he moved in a dream as he was dragged back into the apartment building.

* * *

**Back in the present**

Now Jack was standing in his own living room swaying, blood trickling from his nose and ears, reluctant to move lest the slicing pain of the recall ricochet returned. The look of fear on Ianto's face was grounding him to the here and now and he tried to keep his eye locked with this of his partner. Johansson's words, describing how they had met and providing graphic details of what she and her late partner had done to him, were a stream of vitriol in his ear forcing him to remember, forcing him closer to death.

'Jack?' Ianto soft voice cut through Ralijke's shriller tones.

'Quiet' ordered Johansson, pressing the knife closer to Jack's neck, 'he is going to pay for how he ruined my life. We are going to stand here until I push him into an epsilon category recall ricochet. You are going to watch as your beloved, 'sarcasm dripped from her voice, 'turns into a babbling mess of pain and despair.' Ianto took a step backwards, bumping into the breakfast bar, finger scrabbling on the tiled surface as he recoiled from the venom and madness in Johansson's words; she gave an insane cackle, 'yes, run away little boy.' She shook Jack who was slumped heavily against her, he was barely conscious, blood streaming from his nose and ears, 'look Harkness, see how your lover recoils from you. He is such a primitive.' She gave a snort of derision, 'by the gods is there no lower life form that you won't fuck?'

Jack forced himself to straighten up,' I wouldn't fuck you for a bet,'with someone eles's cock he said with difficulty.

Teasingly Ralijke dug the point of her knife into the spot where Jack's neck met his shoulder then leaned in to whisper in his ear, 'you begged us,' she said softly, 'we tied you down to the scanner bed in your flier and you begged us to give you just one more hour, do you remember, Maran. Do you?'

'My...my name is not Maran. It's J-J-Jack, Jack Harkness-Jones'

'I knew you as Maran Bo. Rogue tine agent and Raja Rem's partner. You know that, don't you?'

Jack began to convulse, vomit and spittle spraying from his mouth making Johansson lean away from him in disgust; his gaze never wavered from Ianto's face. Eventually he managed to stammer out, 'now _beliyarat _.'

With a strangled scream, Ianto leapt across the living room and bought the expensive cast iron skillet that had been a wedding gift from his sister down hard upon Ralijke Johansson's head. There was a small cracking sound, like an egg shell breaking, and she slumped unconscious to the floor. Ianto threw the skillet to one side and caught his failing husband, lowering him gently to cradle him in his arms. Jack was still convulsing but was making a valiant effort to speak, he grasped Ianto's wrist in a crushing grip and tried to pull his hand down to his wrist strap. 'Please,' he ground out, 'it's time.' He managed to flip off the cover of his vortex manipulator and dragged Ianto's fingers down to the familiar sequence of buttons.

Ianto's eyes were full of tears as he programmed the V.M to take his lover away from him though time and space, 'I love you, Cariad,' he sobbed, 'please come to me as quickly as you can.'

'Beliyarat' whispered Jack as the bright flash of the Vortex manipulator engulfed him and he disappeared, leaving Ianto alone with Ralijke who was slowly groaning her way back to consciousness.


	15. Chapter 15

**Melasinde Proto 5025**

The flash of white light that signified the end transmission point of a vortex manipulator stimulated the Auto-Medic androids ; they moved quickly to the figure lying in the street being soaked by the rain which was a characteristic of Melasinde Proto. They rapidly scanned the unconscious man, diagnosed an epsilon category recall recoil and transported his body into the medical facility. The whole thing took less than a minute and the rain puddled on the pavement as if man had never been there.

* * *

The first thing Jack was aware of was the smell. It was strange mixture of antiseptic, heated circuits and disinfectant; it told Jack exactly where he was. _Automated med-fac_, he thought, must be _around the year 50,000. I wonder what planet I'm on_. He was naked and feeling as weak a new born mar'karet but he tried to summon the energy to raise his head. There was a warning chime and a soft and teasingly familiar feminine voice sounded reassuringly in Jack's ear.

'Please remain still Captain Harkness. I am the A.I of your regeneration chamber and I will be tending to you throughout your stay in this facility.'

'Amelie?' slurred Jack, squinting against the low blue-tinged lighting and trying to ignore the fact that his brain was trying to force itself out of his eye sockets

There was a short pause, 'I regret, I do not know the name Amelie. My designation is Re-gen A.I unit 269. You have been under my care since your vortex manipulator bought you here two and half hours ago.

Jack rested back on the padded gurney on which he was laying, 'sorry' he mumbled, 'I thought I recognised...' his voice tailed off as pain and exhaustion flooded his body once more. He tried to rally his strength, 'where am I?'

'This is the Prime City med-fac.'

'What planet?'

'Melasinde Proto.'

'Not in Kansas anymore,'rasped Jack, recalling a cold winter's evening curled up on the sofa, eating pop-corn and being introduced to the classic movie, "The Wizard of Oz" by his lover. He had liked the flying monkeys he remembered

'You are still disorientated,' said Re-gen A.I unit 269 gently, 'the cerebral damage from your recall ricochet is only 67% repaired. It is imperative you remain immobile for another four hours. If you wish I can sedate you to make the time pass more easily.'

Jack relaxed back, and closed his eyes. 'No thank you,' he said softly. The Re-gen unit whirred quietly as analgesic gases were released into the healing chamber. Jack sighed imaging Ianto's beautiful Welsh voice whispering in his ear; 'rest_, Cariad, sleep, heal and come back to me_.' Jack's breathing slowed and evened and the tension in his body dissipated as he slid into the oblivion of a natural sleep.

* * *

When Jack opened his eyes again the light was a brighter, warmer yellow that made Jack's body tingle as a swarm of golden nanogenes encompassed his body, repairing and reinforcing and suffusing him with a warm sense of strength and wellbeing.

'Amelie' he murmured sleepily.

The A.I unit gave an electronic burble, 'Re-gen A.I unit 269' she said reprovingly, 'must I run another deep cerebral scan to quadruple check your memory integrity?'

'No' Jack gave a perplexed sigh, 'I don't know why I keep calling you that. It's just...your voice reminds me of an A.I unit I once knew but that was around 5014 so...'

'Shall we concentrate on the matter in hand?' said Re-gen A.I unit 269. 'I can confirm that all damage caused by the recall ricochet has been deleted, the damaged areas of your cerebellum have been regenerated and your nanogene supply, which was at a dangerously low concentration, has been restored to appropriate levels with a reserve supply of 50% of norm. This will protect you for at least another 250 years.'

'So I can go?'

'You can go, Captain. However, the recall ricochet damage was extensive and so I would like you to return here within seven cycles so that I can carry out a residual scan on your brain. Is that understood?'

'Seven cycles?' Jack was appalled, 'I can't stay here for another seven cycles. I have someone to return to.'

'This is not a negotiation.' The Re-gen A.I unit managed to sound implacable, 'The only choice you have is whether to find a short-lease residential unit in which to stay or defy me and spend the next seven cycles in this healing chamber.' Jack heard the click of locking mechanisms as the A.I unit reinforced her point.

Jack's body sagged with acquiescence, 'Very well. I agree.' Unconsciously his fingers caressed the spot on his left wrist where his vortex manipulator usually rested.

'I was confident of your compliance, Captain,' said Re-gen A.I unit 269, 'but to make assurance doubly sure we will store your wrist strap for the duration of your stay on our planet.'

Jack knew when he was beaten, 'very well.' A small recessed panel slid open and Jack's clothes, newly laundered and warm were presented to him. He grabbed them and began to struggle to dress himself.

'If you stop at the reception area on your way out, the information unit will provide with a list of local residential units and emergency funds to sustain you during your stay in our city.'

'Thank you.' Jack shrugged himself into his coat.

'Seven cycles, Captain' reminded the Re-gen unit, 'or the security services will come and arrest you for misappropriation of medical care funds.'

'Yeah, yeah' said Jack irritably and ungratefully as he made his way to the entrance of the med-fac.

* * *

**Two days later**

Two cycles later Jack was going slowly out of his mind with boredom. The emergency funds provided by the med-fac were extraordinarily generous, funded partly, Jack suspected, by the local office of the Time Agency. That was a cause for concern; if the Time Agency were active in the city they may well still have Jack on the watch lists. That meant he would have to keep a low profile for the duration of his time on the planet. He had found himself a short lease domicile which sufficed for his needs but, after only two days, he was going stir crazy. No harm, he told himself, in going out to explore the city as long as he kept his head down and stayed off the Time Agency's radar.

A mere five hundred metres from his rooms, Jack found a very friendly bar. He seated himself at a quiet corner table and ordered a plate of krevla and a side order of fried amantite. The very attractive bar tender had recommended a local beverage, a rough, potent, red wine named Quintello which left a warm fruity aftertaste. It complemented the spicy krevla perfectly. Well fed and more than a little drunk, Jack leant back and surveyed the room. The bar was dark, each table had a small fire pot at its centre providing small sparks and flickers of light. The occupants of the table were illuminated in parts; clasped hands, stroking fingers, the occasional flash of breast or stiffened nipple tenting the fabric of a shirt.

Jack sighed, he missed Ianto so much, it was a constant ache in his gut. He seemed to see him everywhere he looked. The barman, for example, could almost be his Welshman's twin. Same dark hair, same smooth pale skin and although his accent was nowhere near as enticing as Ianto's he did have a slight lisp which gave his speech an enchanting sibilance which Jack found quite arousing. The barman noticed Jack's eyes upon him and flashed him a shy smile and stepped out from behind the bar, another bottle of Quintello and a spare glass held loosely between his long fingers. He crossed to where Jack was sitting and placed the bottle and glass on the table.

'Looking for company?' his voice was low, soft and full of promise

'Maybe,' Jack smiled muzzily in the man's direction, 'what's your name?'

The barman poured them both a glass of wine, watching as Jack took a deep draft. Tentatively the young man reached out and clasped Jack's fingers firmly, stroking his pulse point with his thumb. He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds the opened them to smile directly into Jack's eyes, 'Its Ianto.'

Jack squinted at the face so close to his own, the Quintello was making his brain fuzzy and confused, his vision was blurring around the edges also. 'Are you my Ianto?' he asked desperately.

Thin, pale fingers rested on his thigh, kneading and stroking, 'Do you want me to be?'

Somehow Jack found his head resting on the shoulder of the other man as he nuzzled against the warm skin of his neck. He sniffed deeply, 'you smell like my Ianto.' He gave a small chuckle and then licked a long stripe up behind the bar keeper's ear, 'you taste like my Ianto too.'

"Ianto" released Jack's hand and placed it on the hard bulge tenting his trousers, 'Do I feel like your Ianto too?'

Jack squeezed gently, drawing a loan groan of pure desire from the other man, 'Gods, you really do' he slurred.

'If I'm Ianto,' continued the barman, 'what would you be planning to do to me?'

'I'll take you back to my place,' whispered Jack, resting his spinning head against the close cropped hair of his companion and putting his lips close to the familiar and exquisitely sculptured ear, making the younger man shiver with pleasure,' I'll strip you of all your clothes and lay you down on my bed. I'll spread your legs wide and lick your hungry little hole until you are begging me to enter you.'

Lust darkened eyes stared fixed on Jack's, 'then what?'

'Then I'd kiss my way up your trembling body until I was able to suck your nipples into my mouth whilst I push myself into you to fill you and make you mine...' His voice trailed away and his eyes fluttered closed

The young man leaned in a kissed Jack who stirred and murmured, 'Yan? Beliyarat?'

"Ianto" gave a low laughed and hauled the drunken Captain to his feet, 'Come on my dear, let's go home to bed.

* * *

**Two cycles on**

Jack awoke with a pounding headache, a dry mouth, an empty stomach and a familiar ache in his back and arse. The sheets were sweaty and sticky and a warm body was pressed up against his back. Spunk crusted the back of his legs and his belly and the room reeked of sex. Splinters of late afternoon light leaked around the edges of the thin window blinds and stabbed unkindly into his eye balls making him groan pitifully.

The arm around his waist tightened, 'you OK, Darling?'

Jack froze, then moving slowly and carefully he picked up the restraining arm between finger and thumb and removed it from his torso. He rolled over and found himself looking into a smug but unfamiliar face. He blinked, 'who the fuck are you?'

His bed partner pouted, 'after the things we have done to each other over the past two cycles, I find that a bit rude.'

Jack closed his eyes, if only his head would stop aching. He remembered deciding to get out of the med-fac sponsored apartment and finding a cosy little bar to sit in and people watch. He remembered watching the bar tender and drinking, drinking quite a lot. He had been drinking Quintello at the instigation of the Barman; there was something he had read once about that wine, some kind of warning but he couldn't quite recall what it was. Jack frowned, he remembered the barman coming to join him. They had drunk quite a lot and then...and then...

'Oh sweet Goddesses' Jack covered his face with his hands for a second, then lowered then and wrapped them around the stranger's throat, 'who are you? What did you do to me? How did you managed to look so much like...?'

'Like Ianto?' smirked the young man who, Jack noticed, was still wrapped around his limbs like ivy around an oak tree and unbothered by the grip Jack had on his throat. His bed mate leant forwards and kissed Jack's lips lightly, 'I'm an E.S - an emotional symbiote, Captain.'

Jack's heart plummeted into his belly. He had heard of emotional symbiotes, telepathic creatures that could mimic the features and physiology of other beings to arouse sexual desire. They obtained their sustenance from the act of union. If Jack had spent the last two days fucking and being fucked by this pseudo-Ianto then he had been an all you can eat buffet. Jack knew he had no excuse, he had been lonely and drunk, the symbiote had picked up on that, drawn Ianto's image from his mind and moved in for his meal.

Now in the grey dismal light of day, it was obviously that the young bar tender, although quite pretty was nothing at all like Jack's husband. Jack rolled off the sleeping platform and sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. 'get out' he growled.

The E.S wrapped his arms around Jack's naked torso, 'oh don't be like that, Lover,' he whispered, 'you had a good time didn't you? You liked having me in your bed, even though I was imitating your beloved Ianto. I made you scream, I made you cum and cum and cum. You were gorgeous'

Jack didn't even look up, ' get out' he repeated

'But Cariad...'

In a nano-second, Jack twisted like a fighting cat and dragged the symbiote of the bed and onto the floor, 'don't you call me that' he snarled, 'don't you fucking dare. Get your clothes and get out. If you ever come near me again, I swear I will fucking kill you. You feed off emotions? I'll give you so much emotion, you will fucking choke.'

Without another word the symbiote gathered his clothes and scampered towards the door. Disconsolately Jack wrapped himself in a blanket and wandered over to the window. The grey drizzle matched his mood perfectly. Once he heard the door close softly and knew himself to be alone, he rested his forehead on the cool window pane and let the tears flow.

'Oh Ianto, _Beliyarat_ , how will you ever forgive me? How will I ever forgive myself?'


End file.
